Possible treatments for Ebola

[Bookaboo]

For those of you like me, who might also be feeling helpless and worried, I thought it would be interesting to start a thread that brings together information on possible treatments for ebola. This is not in any way meant to fuel rumours about magical cures, but just discuss options that are out there being investigated.

There was a story about a Doctor in Liberia who treated some patients with a HIV drug. It would be interesting to see what becomes of this:

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-liberia-doctor-treating-patients-with-hiv-drugs-claims-13-out-of-15-survived-9759642.html

There is also some research suggesting that vitamin C could play a role in helping the body to deal with the effects of the disease:

www.patrickholford.com/blog/vitamin-c-helpful-against-ebola

Has anyone heard of any others or have any more information on these potential treatments?

Melatonin, allegedly; counteracts the cytokine Storm. Allegedly.

Am afraid I am deeply suspicious of any 'cure' relating to vitamins, or over the counter meds. Life ain't that easy.

Patrick Holford is a dangerous quack. Not surprised to see him peddling a wonder-cure for Ebola, he claims the same for AIDS.

Patrick Holford is a dangerous quack

Now that makes more sense.

There are no proven treatments.

Supples of zmapp are now exhausted, but some patients treated with it did not survive.

Antivirals are often thrown at it (right back to interferon in 1970s) but again no provable effect.

WHO has (unusually) approved unproven treatments. I hope anything promising, providing it does no harm, is tried. But I think it for many it will come down to availability of life supportive measures to keep them alive for long enough for the immune system to respond.

I trawled through several articles on PubMed some time ago, but found nothing apart from the reference to Melatonin as cited above.

Is there anything Holford doesn't suggest Vitamin C for? Wasn't he part of the whole Matthias Rath, Vitamin C cures HIV/AIDS debacle.

So far drug treatments I know about are:

Zmapp - given to 8 patients so far, 2 of which have died
Brincidofovir, which was given to the Liberian man who died in Texas
Favipirovir, which was given to a French aid worker who survived

Where did the Melatonin suggestion come from, reputable or quack source?

I read it on here last night, but the paper linked to looked more like an opinion piece on why it might help. They don't appear to have much data to back it up.

I don't know how well the theory behind the opinion holds up. Looked a bit quack to me but I'm not an expert.

Sorry, I hadn't mentioned about the new drugs that are already known about. It's funny how we keep being told that there isn't any Zmapp left, but then another dose pops up somewhere. Didn't the Spanish nurse get one?

I also forgot to mention blood plasma from survivors. I'm not sure if there is evidence that this works because it seems to be given in combination with other treatments.

I'm sure there is another source for the vitamin C theory. Will have a look. I'm not sure why we should be suspicious of treatments involving vitamins. This is about how vit c could help the body prevent & repair damage that the virus does to cells. Seems plausible.

Might not be quack. There is this
www.jccjournal.org/article/S0883-9441(10)00077-8/fulltext#section3

The theory is that there are similarities between sepsis and ebola. There is a little bit of evidence that melatonin as an add-on treatment improves outcomes for newborns with sepsis so it might work in the same way for people with Ebola. It was given as an add on to the treatment that they would have got anyway rather than as a treatment in itself though which might make a difference. But since we don't have anything better it might be worth a try.

The patient in Spain received the penultimate dose of zmapp, and a patient in Noway the very last one, both in the last few days.

Right, I will hang onto my melatonin stash, could be useful.

There is also a vaccine at the human trials stage in Canada...found to be 100% in the animal trials.

I was wondering what the Norweigan patient had had, AuntieStella.

There are also 3 more patients in the US and 3 in Germany that I presume have been given something but I don't know what.

The Canadians have a drug as well as a vaccine TKM-Ebola which is in phase 1 trials at the moment. Although I think they've been put on hold.

Here's the full paper I read about Melatonin. It gives some background about why Ebola causes so much damage, and what Melatonin might do to attenuate that, hopefully giving your immune system time to deal with it.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpi.12186/pdf

Other studies have used Melatonin against Sepsis. One dosing study I read gave patients up to 100mg per day of Melatonin, with no adverse effects reported (other than mild drowsyness).

aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3237/3/Damsel_study.pdf

From the Ebola paper, and the Sepsis papers I've read, I would look to dose at 60mg per day (purely personal opinion).

I've seen some US sites offering 60 x 20mg capsules for $20. Biovea does it at 10mg as well I think.

Interesting. Glad I hoarded DD2's melatonin when she stopped taking it. Who's laughing now, those who mock the Hoarders.

There are companies working on vaccines and not just in response to this crisis. One in particular I'm thinking of has been in the works for years.

Ofcourse the latest outbreak is providing a certain financial incentive.

They've just had a piece on vaccine development on the BBC lunchtime news.

Even if the current trial goes well, they will not have enough data on safety and efficacy until well into next year, and even if all approvals are fast-tracked, it won't be in to production until 2016, probably.

I see the homeopathy quacks are keeping blissfully silent, for once.

Sadly, Stratters, they haven't. There was a particularly idiotic blog involving using the blood of an Ebola victim as a homeopathic remedy. It's such an astonishingly stupid idea I think even Natural News took it off their site.

Well that at least sounds as if it's rooted in science...the british nurse has donated blood to save other Ebola patients. Presumably he is now producing antibodies ?

Obviously it shouldn't be done by anyone other than a trained professional though.

It's rooted in the homeopathic idea of taking something that will give you the symptoms you want to cure, and then diluting it to the point of nothing.

Everyone else went for herbs/plants that will give you symptoms of Ebola, this guy took it one stage further and went for the bodily fluids of someone actively infected and symptomatic with Ebola. Although he did at least suggest you wear gloves and a face mask when preparing your remedy.

Gosh what a fantastic idea when the infective dose is 1-10 viruses

Bet he doesn't try that one out on himself.

If he wasn't likely to take out a lot of other people with him, it would almost be Darwin Award worthy, Stratters. Unfortunately, there are people out there that might just try it.

Of course there's always violin music

Ah. Then perhaps not.

But the blood of a recovered patient was used in the US I think. Still not what that guy seemed to be thinking of anyway.