As of today, more than 17,800 people have been infected and the death toll stands at 6,331 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the WHO. You have guessed it right we are here discussing about Ebola.
According to Dr. Chan the virus is “running ahead” of the efforts to contain it. And to accelerate the efforts National Institute of Health has recently filed a patent application for improved treatments for Ebola virus. You can get an access to the patent application from here.
The patent application talks about the recent study that has established that passive immunotherapy is a tractable approach to Ebola virus treatment pre- and post-exposure.
The invention provides an isolated humanized glycoprotein pre-fusion core that has more than 95% similarity to a human antibody framework region. It also comprises of the different heavy chain and light chain CDR sequences.
You have to check the patent application to know about those CDR sequences or you can leave a comment for us so that we can provide the details in the comment itself.
When an infected mouse was treated with 16F6, its death was delayed by 5-7 days. Hence, it suggests that an optimized 16F6 variant will be protective and there lies room of improvement for KZ52.The patent also points out that among the antibodies KZ52 and 16F6, the 16F6 can reduce the infectivity by 10-folds more than KZ52 at higher antibody concentration.
According to Robert Stoll, former U.S. Patent and Trademark commissioner “If a company patents it, they could limit access.” However, as we have mentioned earlier, The U.S. government has been supporting this research and that signifies that the NIH would make it available for public use, which private companies aren’t as likely to do.
The risk to the world “is always there” while the outbreak continues, said by WHO’s Dr. Chan in her recent interview with BBC. However, the collaborative efforts will surely improve the situation and will bring the outbreak under control.