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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Ebola death toll reaches 1,069: WHO

2014-08-14

[Iran Press TV] The World Health Organization (WHO) says the worst outbreak of Ebola has so far claimed the lives of 1,069 people.

The UN health agency announced the latest corpse count on Wednesday, adding that the disease left 56 people dead in just two days.

The number of confirmed infections rose by 128 over the two days, raising the total number of cases to 1,975 people, the WHO said.

New cases and deaths had been registered in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.

The development comes as Canada has said it would send doses of a vaccine called VSV-EBOV to West Africa. The drug has shown promise in animal research but never been tested in humans.

And now it will be. If it does nothing or causes harm, it will soon be conclusively demonstrated.

Posted by:Fred

#2 Every drug is toxic and they all have side effects, to a greater or lesser degree. So it's always a question of which is worse: the disease or the treatment?

Besides, ZMapp and vaccines are antibodies. Not drugs. No guarantee of efficacy, but very unlikely to be harmful. By "animal research" they mean monkeys. Primates. 98%+ genetic similarity to humans. Much better than rats or mice or cells in a petri dish.

This Ebola strain so far has a 55% mortality rate. If there was an option beyond bed rest and staying hydrated, I'd sure as hell give it a go.

Posted by: RandomJD 2014-08-14 19:16

#1 Some rejected drugs for other diseases turned out, in testing, to have horrible near term (weeks to months) side effects that rendered them unusable. Check out fialuridine.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-08-14 10:12

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