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Ebola may soon be a "preventable and treatable" disease after a trial of two drugs showed significantly improved survival rates, scientists have said. Four drugs were trialled on patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is a major outbreak of the virus. More than 90% of infected people can survive if treated early with the most effective drugs, the research showed. The drugs will now be used to treat all patients with the disease in DR Congo, according to health officials. On Tuesday, two people cured of Ebola using the experimental drugs were released from a treatment centre...

The second Dallas nurse infected with Ebola has been cured and plans to appear on Tuesday at a triumphant press conference at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The recovery of Amber Joy Vinson, who became infected with the virus while caring for Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan in a Dallas hospital, leaves only one person in America known to have an active case of Ebola. That is Craig Spencer, the doctor who became feverish on Thursday in New York and was immediately transported to Bellevue Hospital. He remains isolated in what health officials have described as serious but stable condition....

In a game of cat and mouse with health and safety officials, Americans profit off panic with modern versions of snake oil treatments, like vitamins branded ‘Ebola-C’ First of all, Steve Barwick wants you to know that Ebola is a government conspiracy. “This current ‘Ebola crisis’ is … a massive psy-ops campaign,” he wrote in an (undated) blogpost on his website, The Silver Edge. “In other words, the threat is largely being manufactured and planted into the minds of the American public, through the federal government/news media axis.” Barwick, to his credit, points out correctly that the likelihood of coming...

Dr. Leslie Lobel is an Israeli virologist conducting cutting edge research on a cure for Ebola -- a cure he believes is three to five years away. As reported in the Times of Israel: Unlike many people, Dr. Leslie Lobel has not been shocked to hear about the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the largest ever recorded since the virus’s discovery in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). A Ben-Gurion University of the Negev virologist and a leader in the search for a cure for the devastating disease, Lobel had been predicting such an outbreak. (snip)...

When American Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 2, he had reportedly already had one course of treatment with an experimental drug called ZMAPP made with genetically engineered tobacco. Although it has only been tested previously in animals, the FDA is rumored to have authorized emergency approval for the drug for Brantly and another American who contracted the virus doing medical aid work in Liberia during the ongoing West African Ebola outbreak. MAPP is produced by a small San Diego-based biotech company. The scientists use a common tobacco bacteria, genetically engineered with different components of the...

(SAN DIEGO) -- The companies manufacturing an experimental drug treating two American Ebola patients aren't among the largest multinational pharmaceuticals in the world. In fact, leading the effort is a small nine-employee firm in San Diego. Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., founded in 2003, says on its website that it develops, "novel pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, focusing on unmet needs in global health and biodefense." Mapp's commercialization arm is LeafBio Inc., which has no employees and just two owners, Mapp President Larry Zeitlin tells ABC News. Mapp, along with LeafBio and Defyrus Inc. in Toronto, Canada, collaborated...

The experimental drug used to treat two American aid workers who have been infected with the Ebola virus has never been tested on humans before and was only identified earlier this year as part of an ongoing research program backed by the U.S. government and military. Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol have each received doses of the drug, known as ZMapp, aimed at boosting the immune system's efforts to fight off Ebola and is made from antibodies produced by lab animals exposed to parts of the virus. The Associated Press reported that Writebol, 59, had received two doses of...

An experimental serum given to Christian aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus was manufactured by a San Diego pharmaceutical firm using plants, the company and U.S. health authorities disclosed Monday. As Dr. Kent Brantly fights for his life in a special containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and missionary Nancy Writebol prepares to be evacuated from Liberia on Tuesday, details began to emerge about a mysterious treatment they were given shortly after they became infected. The drug, which was produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., is called ZMapp and has not been evaluated for safety in humans,...

Kevin LoriaAugust. 4, 2014 Both of the Ebola-infected U.S. citizens in Liberia received a rare dose of what news reports called a "secret serum" to treat the virus before being transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to a CNN report. And while some people do fight off the disease on their own, in the case of the two Americans, that experimental serum may have saved their lives. As Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol waited in a Liberian hospital, someone from the National Institutes of Health reached out to Samaritan's Purse, one of the two North Carolina-based...

Three vials containing an experimental drug stored at subzero temperatures were flown into Liberia last week in a last-ditch effort to save two American missionary workers who had contracted Ebola, according to a source familiar with details of the treatment. The drug appears to have worked, sources say. Dr. Kent Brantly's and Nancy Writebol's conditions significantly improved after receiving the medication, sources say. Brantly was able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after being evacuated to the United States last week, and Writebol is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday. On July 22, Brantly woke up feeling...

Three top secret, experimental vials stored at subzero temperatures were flown into Liberia last week in a last-ditch effort to save two American missionary workers who had contracted Ebola, according to a source familiar with details of the treatment. A representative from the National Institutes of Health contacted Samaritan's Purse in Liberia and offered the experimental treatment, known as ZMapp, for the two patients, according to the source. The drug was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. The patients were told that this treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in...