The World Health Organisation (W.H.O) has said that the blood of patients who recover from Ebola should be used to treat others. The theory is that the antibodies of a survivor transferred into a sick patient would boost the patient’s immune system. People produce antibodies in the blood in an attempt to fight off an Ebola infection.



Although large scale data on the efficacy of the therapy is lacking, studies on the 1995 outbreak of the virus in Democratic Republic of Congo showed seven out of eight people survived after being treated with the method.

Dr Marie Paule Kieny, an assistant director general at WHO said: "We agreed that whole blood therapies may be used to treat Ebola virus and all efforts must be invested to help infected countries to use them. There is a real opportunity that a blood-derived product can be used now and this can be very effective in terms of treating patients."

"There are also many people now who have survived and are doing well. They can provide blood to treat the other people who are sick."

Survivors' blood contains natural antibodies that can protect against the Ebola virus.

Antibodies are produced by the body’s white blood cells and bind to foreign invaders like viruses and bacteria to neutralise them as a threat

The WHO is developing a system where blood from survivors of the disease can be drawn out safely and re-injected into patients.

There is currently no clinically proven drug or vaccine for Ebola, but many are at the experimental stage.

According to the Health body, some of those Ebola vaccines could be used in West Africa by November when safety data would be ready.


About 150 experts have spent the last two days investigating how to fast-track the use of promising experimental drugs just as Ebola vaccine trials have started in the US will be extended to centres in the UK, Mali and Gambia in the coming weeks.

Experimental drugs - such as ZMapp, which has been used in seven patients including a British volunteer nurse - were also assessed. However the supplies of all the experimental drugs are very limited, if not exhausted. The WHO said it would take several months to produce more.
West Africa is facing the largest Ebola outbreak in history and more than 2,000 people have died.


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