I did a post the other day on a potential Ebola vaccine but perhaps a vaccine is not the route to go.   What if a cure was a better thing? [icopyright one button toolbar]

 It appears the lives of the two Americans that contracted the disease may have been saved by a highly experimental drug produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.  The drug had been tested on monkeys but never on humans.  They apparently got approval to give them the drug based on the FDA compassionate clause, in other words they were going to die if nothing was done so why not.

Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little-understood treatment and gave informed consent, according to two sources familiar with the care of the missionary workers. In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Brantly didn’t receive it until he’d been sick for nine days.

Brantly was near death and received the drug first and within less than an hour was able get up and to take a shower.  This will never be profitable for a pharmaceutical company and development was paid for by the government and to expand production the company it will require  government subsides.   As I noted in the previous post although Ebola is not officially an airborne pathogen it could be delivered as a  air-sol spray so the DOD and the Department of Homeland Security should be interested.  This is potentiality a bio-terrorism threat.

This should be fast tracked.  Out of necessity the phase two testing has started and the serum appears to be effective.