Now the outbreak, which has killed 1,550 people according to Worth Health Organisation figures and far more according to unofficial estimates, has galvanized researchers into action. The “pipeline” of experimental compounds identified as likely to work against Ebola contains around 15 drugs and a dozen vaccines, most of which have been tested on animals but not people.
The leading candidate among the drugs seems to be a cocktail of three antibodies against Ebola virus, called ZMapp, which has been given to seven patients. Two of them died but this might have been because they received the treatment when the infection was so advanced that nothing could have saved them.
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