Progress towards protection from highly lethal Ebola, Marburg viruses
Wednesday, July 13, 2016 - 15:43
in Health & Medicine
Ebola and Marburg filovirus disease outbreaks have typically occurred as isolated events, confined to central Africa. However, the recent Ebola epidemic spread to several African countries, and caused 11,000 deaths. That epidemic underscored the need to develop vaccines and therapeutics that could be used to fight future disease outbreaks. Now new research suggests that antibodies to filoviruses from individuals who have survived these diseases may offer protection -- not only against the particular filovirus that infected an individual, but against other filoviruses, as well.