New drug cures Ebola-related virus in monkeys

An experimental drug has been shown to halt the replication of the Marburg virus - a relative of Ebola - and can cure a patient after several days of infection.

A study led by Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology from the University of Texas in the US, tested a new intravenous drug on 16 rhesus macaques infected with theMarburg virus. The researchers involved reported that all 16 monkeys lived after the treatment, whereas five infected monkeys that did not receive the treatment died in just over a week.

This is the first time any drug has been able to cure a lab animal from this particular strain of the Marburg virus, and because it belongs to the same family of viruses as Ebola, the team is now working on adjusting it to suit Ebola patients. According to Geisbert, they’re combining their new drug with another experimental drug designed to be like ZMapp, which is an anti-Ebola drug that used to be distributed to infected American missionaries working in Liberia. The global supplies of ZMapp have just about dried up.

So far no drug has been approved for the prevention or treatment of Marburg or Ebola, but according to a paper published by Geisbert and his colleagues in the journal Science Translational Medicine, their drug starts attacking the virus the minute it gains access to the cell.

"The Marburg drug consists of sections of 'small interfering RNA' (siRNA), or silencing RNA, which are created in the lab and packaged in microscopic envelopes called lipid nanoparticles that can be absorbed by cells,” says Monte Morin at the LA Times. "Once inside the cell, the siRNA hampers viral reproduction by degrading messenger RNA and shutting down the production of viral proteins."

"Maybe the best analogy I can give is the messenger RNA is a blueprint for how the virus makes more of itself, and the siRNA kind of interferes or blocks that ability for it to kind of follow its recipe to make proteins," Geisbert said in a recent statement to journalists.

According to Morin at the LA Times, Geisbert and his colleagues have begun Phase 1 trials of their new Ebola drug and hope to work their way up to human trials as soon as possible.