Monday, September 29, 2014

NEWS: Ebola: Doctor saves 13 patients with HIV drug

A doctor in Liberia has turned to HIV medication to combat a deadly outbreak of Ebola.
CNN reports Gobee Logan has found Ebola patients treated with Lamivudine exhibit signs of recovery within a day or two.
It’s believed he got the idea after reading in scientific journals that HIV and Ebola replicate in the body in a similar way.
Upon hearing of Logan’s apparent successes, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the
United States, Anthony Fauci, says Logan’s approach has some merits, as the HIV drug is similar to other drugs already
being studied to combat Ebola. Further tests will need to be conducted to gauge the drug’s real effectiveness.
(NewsFlash)
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A doctor in rural Liberia, who has been inundated with Ebola patients, says he has had good results with an HIV drug.

Doctor Gobee Logan has given the drug, called lamivudine, to 15 Ebola patients and 13 have survived.

Logan says he was left with no choice.

“In a situation like this, I have to use every brain cell to save lives.”

The death toll from an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has risen to at least 3,091 out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as in either Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other most affected countries, according to WHO data received up to 23 September.

An outbreak that began in a remote corner of Guinea has taken hold of much of neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, prompting warnings that tens of thousands of people may die from the worst outbreak of the disease on record.

The WHO update said Liberia had reported six confirmed cases of Ebola and four deaths in the Grand Cru district, which is near the border with Ivory Coast and had not previously recorded any cases of Ebola.

The district of Kindia in Guinea also reported its first confirmed case, the WHO said, a day after it said the spread of Ebola appeared to have stabilised in that country.

Nigeria and Senegal, the two other nations that have had confirmed cases of Ebola in the region, have not recorded any new cases or deaths in the last few weeks.

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