You see, we now have an opportunity to show the world that God did not make any mistake by creating a blackman. We have always argued that we are equal to the whiteman,now we have an opportunity to prove it. let us prove to them that we are not just bunch of misfit,incompetent,corrupt,unorganised race, but that we are as intelligent as they are. Let us put on our thinking cap and invent a solution to our problem. If we dont do it, we would have proved them right that we are not equal to them but rather second class citizens in the world of races.

bigfrancis21: I wonder why Nigeria can't develop the serum themselves. Its not rocket science - it's simple theory. How did US develop the serum? By injecting laboratory mice with the ebola virus and watching their bodies develop anti-resistance to the virus, and extracting out the liquid resistance and injecting it into a different set of infected mice which were subsequently cured by the serum.

Testing on humans requires permission. And with permission from the FDA(Federal Drug Administration) they tried it on one of the two infected Americans and they were reported to have improved.

It is not rocket science for God's sake. It is simple practicality. We can do it in Nigeria. We have some of the best laboratories in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Port-harcourt and Owerri.

Nigeria sef.

hahaha...we can only talk. Bring out 11M dollars to be shared. Doctors and pharmacists for title only. hahah...bigfran

breakeven: You see, we now have an opportunity to show the world that God did not make any mistake by creating a blackman. We have always argued that we are equal to the whiteman,now we have an opportunity to prove it. let us prove to them that we are not just bunch of misfit,incompetent,corrupt,unorganised race, but that we are as intelligent as they are. Let us put on our thinking cap and invent a solution to our problem. If we dont do it, we would have proved them right that we are not equal to them but rather second class citizens in the world of races.

before nko...keep away from salt and pepper while they find d cure. Oh pray to God.....

and the lesson here is.. Invest in your own country. We have a long way to go but at least the message has been undrrstood. America is not your saviour... It's only concerned about its interest. A possible miracle cure for Ebola that took likely millions to develop, and you think the US will just release it without getting a patent first lmaoo.. Are you a learner

Must we always depend on them...for God sake why can't we encourage and support our own scientist...To hell with Em.

[size=18pt]WOULD SOME OF YOU [s]CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND "ANYTHING WESTERN HATERS"[/s]PLEASE READ THIS WRITE UP AND SIMMER THE FECK DOWN!!! [/size]

08.08.14
Why the White Americans Got the ‘Secret’ Ebola Serum
After two missionaries were given an experimental treatment for Ebola, questions have swirled about why the hundreds of Africans infected aren’t getting it. For good reasons, it turns out.

A Washington Post blog asks: “Why do two white Americans get the Ebola serum while hundreds of Africans die?”

The New Republic demands: “Why did two U.S. missionaries get an Ebola serum while Africans are left to die?”

That was just media yammering, but it was echoed on streets and in subways by otherwise reasonable people.

Never mind that there seem to have been no more than eight doses of the serum in existence.

Never mind that the white people in question—Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol—who received three of those doses before they were flown home to the U.S. got perilously ill in the first place because they risked their lives helping Ebola victims in Liberia who happened to be black.

And never mind that Samaritan’s Purse would not have established the Ebola clinic in Monrovia and asked Brantly serve as medical director had it thought the life of a white American was worth more than the life of a black African.

If nationality and race did influence the organization’s decision to seek an untested serum for Brantly and Writebol, it was likely only because any Western organization that administers an untested serum to the African population runs the risk of being accused of using blacks as guinea pigs in the way of the long-ago Tuskegee syphilis tests and the 1996 meningitis tests in Nigeria.

That was not a worry with the two white Americans.

Of course, Samantha’s Purse may not have been immune from the sense of urgency that can seize even the most altruistic organizations when one of its own is in mortal danger. The same is true with a fire department when a firefighter is critically injured.

Watch what happens at the scene of a blaze when a radio call of “Mayday!” signals that a firefighter who went in to save others suddenly needs saving himself.

This does not mean firefighters care any less about the people they are trying to save any more than it means Samaritan’s Purse was leaving Africans to die when it began asking U.S. scientists and health workers in the hot zone about experimental treatments described in various scientific papers in recent years.

Samaritan’s Purse ended up in contact with Mapp Biopharmaceutical in San Diego, the lead developer of a drug called ZMapp.

The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

ZMapp is an enhanced version of MB-003, which was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). MB-003 consists of three monoclonal—artificially produced—antibodies that proved capable of both deactivating the Ebola virus and tagging it for attack by the victim’s immune system.

A year ago this month, USAMRIID and Mapp announced the results of a study involving Rhesus monkeys that would have caused a sensation had we not been in a long lull between Ebola outbreaks. MB-003 protected 100 percent of the monkeys when administered an hour after exposure and two-thirds of those given the drug 48 hours after exposure.

“We were able to use MB-003 as a true therapeutic countermeasure,” USAMIID virologist Gene Olinger said when the results were announced.

James Pettitt, the study’s lead author, said he and his colleagues would be working with Canadian researchers who had devised a different antibody cocktail. The immediate aim would be to devise the most effective mixture of MB-003 and the Canadian compound and test it in additional monkeys, along with the best dose.

The combination was called ZMAPP. The ultimate results are said to have been even more promising than with MB-003 alone. But Ebola did not seem an imminent threat, and there was no scramble to produce more of the stuff than would be needed for animal toxicity testing and eventually the first human trials, which USAMIID expected to take between five to 10 years.

[size=18pt]The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that there were no more than eight doses of ZMapp in existence when Samaritan's Purse sought some.[/size] Three doses were flown to Liberia. Two were given to Writebol and one to Brantly, who was repeatedly also given a transfusion of blood from a 14-year-old survivor he had treated.

The two stricken Americans were flown to Atlanta, and Brantly in particular seemed to be on the mend. Governments of the affected countries in West African began inquiring about Zmapp. U.S. scientists cautioned that the drug had not yet proven to be as beneficial to humans as it apparently was to monkeys.

“We don’t know if it is effective,” Dr. Heinz Feldmann of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease told The Daily Beast. “We don’t have enough even if it was effective.”

ZMapp is made by inserting modified genes into the cells of tobacco plants whose cells then become mini-factories of the antibodies. The facility where this happens is owned by R.J. Reynolds, which also makes cigarettes that kill by the hundreds of thousands.

Reynolds is now said to be accelerating its effort to do good as well as evil, but tobacco plants grow only so fast, and extracting and purifying antibodies is considerably more complicated than producing cancer sticks. Any significant quantity of ZMapp appears to be months away even if another company with a larger facility joins in the effort.

The question of the serum came up at the press conference President Obama held at the end of this week’s Africa Summit at the White House. He said it would be premature to rush ZMapp to the hot zone.

“Let the science guide us,” he went on to say. “I don't think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful.”

He observed that previous epidemics had been brought under control by effective public health programs.

“We’re focusing on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek information about what we’re learning about these drugs going forward,” he said.

Obama did authorize sending kits for a diagnostic Ebola test called the EZ1 Real-Time RT-PCR Assay. His view that the primary focus should be on containment was echoed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control at an emergency congressional hearing held on Thursday even though lawmakers are in recess.

“In terms of the promising drugs, I can assure you that the U.S. government is looking into this very carefully,” Dr. Thomas Frieden said. “But I don’t want there to be false hope out there. Right now, we don’t know if they work.”

The CDC is moving to assist the fight by going to a Level 1 alert and “surging” 50 experts to West Africa. Frieden emphasized that containment will require great care.

“It’s like fighting a forest fire: Leave behind one burning ember, one case undetected, and the epidemic could reignite,” he said.

When it came his turn to testify, Ken Isaacs of Samaritan’s Purse wondered why the forest fire had been allowed to rage for months with little notice beyond those who were being consumed by it. The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

“It took two Americans getting the disease in order for the international community and the United States to take serious notice of the largest outbreak of the disease in history,” he said. “The disease is uncontained and out of control in West Africa.”

Isaacs, who is a vice president of the organization, spoke as someone who has been watching the fire rage for months and believes it will be harder to contain than many anticipate. He said that too many people in Western Africa remain suspicious of Western medicine and tied to traditional practices that spread the virus, notably the washing and kissing of the dead. He noted that even now university students in Liberia “continue to mock and deny the existence of Ebola.”

“I think we are going to see the death toll in numbers we cannot imagine,” Ken Isaacs said.

He noted that the disease can travel anywhere “at the speed of an airplane.” He said the ultimate goal should be an effective vaccine.

“In the meantime it is a nasty, bloody disease that we must fight now,” he said.

pDude: Mu he he he he he he

Really? Did y'all niggas think for one moment that US was ever gon give you that shyt?

Because of why naw? Maka why?

You should know that your evil has overflown and una shyt don full bucket. US is doing what they call, "TREATING YOUR COLLECTIVE FVCK UP"

Anyway have you tried hot salt water and 2 spoons of egusi?

Buauauauauauauhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. *waiting on the men of god to stage demonstrations on Ebola cure as usual*

lastpage: So, how does Mr. Obama want us to "build infrastructures" (health infrastructures like good hospitals, enough drugs, train more Doctors, medical research labs, sustained funding of the health and educational sectors, e.t.c) first, before releasing this drug to cure people who are dying in their hundreds, and maybe thousands daily, in the nearest future?

Where is the TIME to do all these things FIRST, before releasing the drug for immediate use?
Thus, we can all see that his "advice" is actually a silly excuse for blatant refusal to save African lives. he prefers they all die, as many as possible! Now that is shocking!
I doubt if an Islamic, boko haramic country which we all vilify, can do worse than this!

so, Obama is not ready to help us, he prefers we all die..... or wait, he said he has a "palliative" (some thing to cushion/reduce the effect of suffering) of our death from Ebola! Lets listen o!!

X

[b]Don't we get bored of blaming the west for all our ills?
I think it is wise for the US and indeed any other nation to conduct comprehensive tests to understand the efficacy and after effects of any drug before exporting it to others. After all, we've rather than embark on homebased research been loquacious in our belief of a grand conspiracy.
The virus although of different strain has always been in our immediate backyards. Yet, we've politicized and devalued the role of research.
Faith healers are our trusted source of medication; what a pity. The only thing we've mastered is what cannot be substantiated.
As of today how many posters and ads do we have in the local media educating the people on how to prevent the spread?
A hydra-headed monster was born years ago but we preferred to call it a myth. Plagiarised works are awarded top marks, gratification of lecturers reigns supreme. Little wonder we beg for a solution from foreigners for a local problem. Perhaps, we are indeed architects of our own downfall. [/b]

Ekundayo7: [size=18pt]WOULD SOME OF YOU [s]CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND "ANYTHING WESTERN HATERS"[/s]PLEASE READ THIS WRITE UP AND SIMMER THE FECK DOWN!!! [/size]

08.08.14
Why the White Americans Got the ‘Secret’ Ebola Serum
After two missionaries were given an experimental treatment for Ebola, questions have swirled about why the hundreds of Africans infected aren’t getting it. For good reasons, it turns out.

A Washington Post blog asks: “Why do two white Americans get the Ebola serum while hundreds of Africans die?”

The New Republic demands: “Why did two U.S. missionaries get an Ebola serum while Africans are left to die?”

That was just media yammering, but it was echoed on streets and in subways by otherwise reasonable people.

Never mind that there seem to have been no more than eight doses of the serum in existence.

Never mind that the white people in question—Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol—who received three of those doses before they were flown home to the U.S. got perilously ill in the first place because they risked their lives helping Ebola victims in Liberia who happened to be black.

And never mind that Samaritan’s Purse would not have established the Ebola clinic in Monrovia and asked Brantly serve as medical director had it thought the life of a white American was worth more than the life of a black African.

If nationality and race did influence the organization’s decision to seek an untested serum for Brantly and Writebol, it was likely only because any Western organization that administers an untested serum to the African population runs the risk of being accused of using blacks as guinea pigs in the way of the long-ago Tuskegee syphilis tests and the 1996 meningitis tests in Nigeria.

That was not a worry with the two white Americans.

Of course, Samantha’s Purse may not have been immune from the sense of urgency that can seize even the most altruistic organizations when one of its own is in mortal danger. The same is true with a fire department when a firefighter is critically injured.

Watch what happens at the scene of a blaze when a radio call of “Mayday!” signals that a firefighter who went in to save others suddenly needs saving himself.

This does not mean firefighters care any less about the people they are trying to save any more than it means Samaritan’s Purse was leaving Africans to die when it began asking U.S. scientists and health workers in the hot zone about experimental treatments described in various scientific papers in recent years.

Samaritan’s Purse ended up in contact with Mapp Biopharmaceutical in San Diego, the lead developer of a drug called ZMapp.

The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

ZMapp is an enhanced version of MB-003, which was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). MB-003 consists of three monoclonal—artificially produced—antibodies that proved capable of both deactivating the Ebola virus and tagging it for attack by the victim’s immune system.

A year ago this month, USAMRIID and Mapp announced the results of a study involving Rhesus monkeys that would have caused a sensation had we not been in a long lull between Ebola outbreaks. MB-003 protected 100 percent of the monkeys when administered an hour after exposure and two-thirds of those given the drug 48 hours after exposure.

“We were able to use MB-003 as a true therapeutic countermeasure,” USAMIID virologist Gene Olinger said when the results were announced.

James Pettitt, the study’s lead author, said he and his colleagues would be working with Canadian researchers who had devised a different antibody cocktail. The immediate aim would be to devise the most effective mixture of MB-003 and the Canadian compound and test it in additional monkeys, along with the best dose.

The combination was called ZMAPP. The ultimate results are said to have been even more promising than with MB-003 alone. But Ebola did not seem an imminent threat, and there was no scramble to produce more of the stuff than would be needed for animal toxicity testing and eventually the first human trials, which USAMIID expected to take between five to 10 years.

[size=18pt]The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that there were no more than eight doses of ZMapp in existence when Samaritan's Purse sought some.[/size] Three doses were flown to Liberia. Two were given to Writebol and one to Brantly, who was repeatedly also given a transfusion of blood from a 14-year-old survivor he had treated.

The two stricken Americans were flown to Atlanta, and Brantly in particular seemed to be on the mend. Governments of the affected countries in West African began inquiring about Zmapp. U.S. scientists cautioned that the drug had not yet proven to be as beneficial to humans as it apparently was to monkeys.

“We don’t know if it is effective,” Dr. Heinz Feldmann of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease told The Daily Beast. “We don’t have enough even if it was effective.”

ZMapp is made by inserting modified genes into the cells of tobacco plants whose cells then become mini-factories of the antibodies. The facility where this happens is owned by R.J. Reynolds, which also makes cigarettes that kill by the hundreds of thousands.

Reynolds is now said to be accelerating its effort to do good as well as evil, but tobacco plants grow only so fast, and extracting and purifying antibodies is considerably more complicated than producing cancer sticks. Any significant quantity of ZMapp appears to be months away even if another company with a larger facility joins in the effort.

The question of the serum came up at the press conference President Obama held at the end of this week’s Africa Summit at the White House. He said it would be premature to rush ZMapp to the hot zone.

“Let the science guide us,” he went on to say. “I don't think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful.”

He observed that previous epidemics had been brought under control by effective public health programs.

“We’re focusing on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek information about what we’re learning about these drugs going forward,” he said.

Obama did authorize sending kits for a diagnostic Ebola test called the EZ1 Real-Time RT-PCR Assay. His view that the primary focus should be on containment was echoed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control at an emergency congressional hearing held on Thursday even though lawmakers are in recess.

“In terms of the promising drugs, I can assure you that the U.S. government is looking into this very carefully,” Dr. Thomas Frieden said. “But I don’t want there to be false hope out there. Right now, we don’t know if they work.”

The CDC is moving to assist the fight by going to a Level 1 alert and “surging” 50 experts to West Africa. Frieden emphasized that containment will require great care.

“It’s like fighting a forest fire: Leave behind one burning ember, one case undetected, and the epidemic could reignite,” he said.

When it came his turn to testify, Ken Isaacs of Samaritan’s Purse wondered why the forest fire had been allowed to rage for months with little notice beyond those who were being consumed by it. The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

“It took two Americans getting the disease in order for the international community and the United States to take serious notice of the largest outbreak of the disease in history,” he said. “The disease is uncontained and out of control in West Africa.”

Isaacs, who is a vice president of the organization, spoke as someone who has been watching the fire rage for months and believes it will be harder to contain than many anticipate. He said that too many people in Western Africa remain suspicious of Western medicine and tied to traditional practices that spread the virus, notably the washing and kissing of the dead. He noted that even now university students in Liberia “continue to mock and deny the existence of Ebola.”

“I think we are going to see the death toll in numbers we cannot imagine,” Ken Isaacs said.

He noted that the disease can travel anywhere “at the speed of an airplane.” He said the ultimate goal should be an effective vaccine.

“In the meantime it is a nasty, bloody disease that we must fight now,” he said.

I think olucheye need to read this

Nigerian Doctors are never research oriented but money oriented . The university education they acquired was to make money and not to engage in profitable research to save lives

LMAyedun: Where are our herbalists when we need them the most...
FG should finance our local herbalists for a research..
The herbs can fight Ebola, our forefathers made things happen those days

Our herbalists will use all the money to buy he goats, 5 gallons of Palm oil, 7 kegs of Palm wine, 2 white fowl and they will request for 7 virgins before the next "eke" market day.

chinkichun:

Our herbalists will use all the money to buy he goats, 5 gallons of Palm oil, 7 kegs of Palm wine, 2 white fowl and they will request for 7 virgins before the next "eke" market day.

You forgot to add the packet of Maggi cubes to the list.

when i read dat 9ja had asked d u.s 4 d drug, i was like ahh ahh, whose stupidd idea was dat? nigeria, d u.s can't just dash out d drug 2 u like dat. it's still in d experimental stage n dere r probably many side effects or risks involved. dey r taking big chances by trying it out on dese pple. if dey give it 2 9ja now n anything bad happens 9ja wud b blaming d u.s. it wud b a poor idea 4 dem 2 just give u. even liberia didn't ask, it had 2 b nigeria. make ur own n try it out 4 urself

Missy89:

havent you seen threads like that on Nairaland? some laughable pan Africans said that few months ago

The little respect I had for you just got flushed down the toilet. I never knew you were part of the ignorant crew and I'm still in shock.

Yes, Africa once ruled Southern Europe, Iberia, all through the dark ages. And it's documented and that's why Sicilians are most times called, ni.ggers. Also everything they built there created what western civilisation was built on during the renaissance. C'mon it is all over European history but those Africans were called, Moors.

I'm highly disappointed in you. I hate when people make fun of the achievements of others because of the duffers who populate the continent now. There is absolutely no point bringing that up on this thread.

Symphony007: You folks should ask putin and russia for the cure!! I thought he and his country are the greatest thing on planet earth?

And what has Russia and Putin got to do with this thread? You lot make America feel more important than it actually is...and didn't little Canada also create an experimental drug?

I'm sure almost all the civilised countries have something to control the virus, and they will release it when it gets to their shores. Germany dealt with something similar in the past. Ditto Japan. The science for the cure or control is out there, Africans are just intellectually lazy.

Truckpusher: Ordinarily one would have thought that an average African person would be wary of their long time slave master, but I guess I was wrong because our gullible Pro-Western leaders as always they have their head stuck in the asss of the West always waiting to be spoon-fed by the very people that has ensured that they remain at the bottom of the totem pole through policies,proxy wars and puppet governments all over Africa which was rife immediately after the end of colonization,and which has ushered in Neo-colonization that exists till this very moment and bites harder than colonization.

All these while this Ebola has existed, no African country has taken it upon themselves to find a lasting solution and Nigeria being a major culprit in this show of shame is even the one begging for drugs that they could just get from their backyard amidst all the abundant rain forest with abundant life saving plants it posseses yet we shamelessly beg for everything.......Abi dem curse us?


Sometimes one can help it but wishes for drastic changes or just close your eyes and cease to exist amidst these tales of woes and woes to come.

We only owe ourselves one thing as Individuals................Do not give birth to children you cannot educate because, if a larger population of the people remains uneducated ,they'll always remain at the mercy of the clueless and worthless leadership with their masters in the West dictating the tune.

Africans ,I pity our people.

Yes, sadly many Africans all over the continent seem to have forgotten who destroyed Africa, they seem to have forgotten about the Belgian massacre of 10 million Africans in the Congo, they seem to have forgotten about over 40 million slaves that were taken from Africa and enslaved with most brutal form of slavery to ever exist for 400 years, they seem to forget who about the apartheid regime in South Africa, they seem to have forgotten who colonized and stole from their land, they seem to have forgotten blacks in South America to this very day are treated as dogs by the whites and hispanics, they seem to have forgotten that African-Americans were being murdered just for being black up until the late 60's by the government.

Africans from the continent are disgraceful many of them even name themselves after the whites that did all of these things, how many Africans are there called John and Mary? Embarrassing. WAKE UP AFRICA. It's time to stop acting like a bunch stup1d monkeys.

Olucheye: When I did mention on some previous thread about a conspiracy on this Ebola Virus someone said I was making noise....


Can we all see the glaring Capitalist Moves Made by the US??

Not wanting to listen to any input as it might be true and might jeopardize their dark contracts with major pharmaceuticals on the release a drugs that will only manage this situation and not end it. Just the same thing that has being happening to HIV/AIDS

Although I do agree that the discovered drugs might not work a 100% but I'm certain it'll show a flaw that would be easy to modify and develop a perfect solution.
But if a solution is reached, how would they make profits from WHO subventions..


Let me sleep before they say I'm propagating conspiracy theories

The stupidity in the way in you think is so evident and the fact that you cant even see it makes it very worrisome....you are one of those saying we should do away with the "western owners" and now when they said go and be independent and think for once without coming to beg for hand-outs,you scream blue murder and a grand plan to rob Afrca blind...is there something wrong with the way you think?they come...wahala...they dont come...wahala...wow

EbuGeneral:


And how many laboratories have come up wit an alternative?

A simple search on Google will help you answer that question.

Some people fail to understand that the drug is in an experimetal stage....still in the lab...not yet approved to be mass produced. Obama is saying the correct thing now...not because of the dangers of giving out a drug that was never tested on humans.....but because the drug cannot be mass produced at this point. The drug is derived from an unnamed plant (maybe bitter kola) which is grown for the lab by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds. RJ Reynolds do not presently grow the plant on a large scale and said it would take a few months for the plant to grow to the required stage. If the drug could have been mass produced immediately then America would have jumped on Jonathan's request and made it available for an arm and a leg....a win win for the US.....win in geting immediate sales for an untested drug....and win in getting a leader to volunteer his subjects to test the pros and cons of the drug on humans. Do you really believe for a moment that America cares about Africans?

nigerian doctors in europe, nigeria and usa, find the cure and save your face... i have maintained that Africa is cursed and the continued plagues of the continent is proving my point...

but to be fair, white mans land is also increasingly cursed with gay madness...

BigBashiru: nigerian doctors in europe, nigeria and usa, find the cure and save your face... i have maintained that Africa is cursed and the continued plagues of the continent is proving my point...

but to be fair, white mans land is also increasingly cursed with gay madness...

there're no gay pple in nigeria, abi?

SirShymex:

And what has Russia and Putin got to do with this thread? You lot make America feel more important than it actually is...and didn't little Canada also create an experimental drug?

I'm sure almost all the civilised countries have something to control the virus, and they will release it when it gets to their shores. Germany dealt with something similar in the past. Ditto Japan. The science for the cure or control is out there, Africans are just intellectually lazy.

except Africans , esp Nigerians that prefers to invest in religion rather than science and technology that will bring development...

Originalsly: Some people fail to understand that the drug is in an experimetal stage....still in the lab...not yet approved to be mass produced. Obama is saying the correct thing now...not because of the dangers of giving out a drug that was never tested on humans.....but because the drug cannot be mass produced at this point. The drug is derived from an unnamed plant (maybe bitter kola) which is grown for the lab by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds. RJ Reynolds do not presently grow the plant on a large scale and said it would take a few months for the plant to grow to the required stage. If the drug could have been mass produced immediately then America would have jumped on Jonathan's request and made it available for an arm and a leg....a win win for the US.....win in geting immediate sales for an untested drug....and win in getting a leader to volunteer his subjects to test the pros and cons of the drug on humans. Do you really believe for a moment that America cares about Africans?

The serum was actually derived from a modified tobacco plant.

1stola:
except Africans , esp Nigerians that prefers to invest in religion rather than science and technology that will bring development...

Lmao!

HandOfChukwu: Yes, sadly many Africans all over the continent seem to have forgotten who destroyed Africa, they seem to have forgotten about the Belgian massacre of 10 million Africans in the Congo, they seem to have forgotten about over 40 million slaves that were taken from Africa and enslaved with most brutal form of slavery to ever exist for 400 years, they seem to forget who about the apartheid regime in South Africa, they seem to have forgotten who colonized and stole from their land, they seem to have forgotten blacks in South America to this very day are treated as dogs by the whites and hispanics, they seem to have forgotten that African-Americans were being murdered just for being black up until the late 60's by the government.

Africans from the continent are disgraceful many of them even name themselves after the whites that did all of these things, how many Africans are there called John and Mary? Embarrassing. WAKE UP AFRICA. It's time to stop acting like a bunch stup1d monkeys.

Your write up made sense all the way till you used those words in bold. If you can degrade your fellow Africans with those words then what is to stop the white men from doing such. You can't blame the whites for everything, sometimes we must look within ourselves and see the true source of our problems!

I can't believe you people bashing the US for not giving us an experimental drug to use!

Do you know the kind of rigorous testing a drug pass through before it's considered safe for human use?

It'll be irresponsible for US to send an experimental drug that the side effect & efficacy is not known especially for a country like 9ja where anything goes. The doctors that the drug has been administered on would have to be isolated & monitored closely for months before being released into the general population just to be sure they don't relapse & cause more harm. Do you trust 9ja with that kind of task?

We couldn't even stop Ebola from entering our shores despite the fact that we knew about it months before now. We can't even find round up all those who had primary & secondary contact with Mr Sawyer.

Abeg the US should hold on to the drug until they are sure about its efficacy & side effects. Let them be sure that that it works and that it won't leave us with a more virulent strain after a few months cos that would be catastrophic & the whole world would hold them responsible if the drugs leaves us worse than we are now already

Hell the drug is not even enough to go round and would take months to produce in commercial quantity that's if it works. As for those of you clamoring for Govt to fund a research for Ebola cure in 9ja, I laugh in Chinese cos that would be playing with fire.

Let's learn to do this properly & avoid quick fixes, that's what got us where we are now. Containment & public health approach is our best bet now

An average Nigerian is not analytical at all, it shows in the kind of very ignorant statements they make online especially here on NL and that is why it always seems as if we can not get anything right.

Besides the Zmapp serum that everyone is falling over each other to get, do you all know that there even more promising drugs like the TKM-ebola from tekmira in canada and the Japanese Fujifilm anti-influenza drug favipiravir all at different stage of experimentations and trials that have shown prospects and even better promises to treating the Ebola viral infection.

We don't seem to focus on the real issues, the commentaries are as usual; intellectually shallow, mentally lazy and lack depth in analysis. It is always about some preposterous conspiracies or the usual blame games or some dumb kid coming up with very distasteful joke on the issue. It is so annoying to read different threads and notice the same streak of intellectual laziness and lethargy in analysis of issues.

Now we have quite some drugs from some small time pharmaceuticals many not even in America but their fundings are tied to the American military and so will most likely need the approval of the American FDA to produce these drugs in commercial quantities, what we as Nigerians should do now is to contract other pharmaceuticals around the world working independently already to develop a vaccine or drug for Ebola. Fund them and get Nigerian scientists to work with them as well.

This whole excuse of not getting enough information on the use of the serum is enough pointer to the politics surrounding the development of any drug to cure an outbreak, it is all about business viability and nothing more. So far the casualties of Ebola viral infection has largely been confined to poor Africa and a mere 900-1000 deaths, that can not be profitable enough to warrant commercially profitable production. This is where Nigeria especially should come in and leverage on. Take over the funding of some of these researches in many of these not too big pharmaceuticals scattered around the world, get them to developed drugs that directly affect the region and geography of Africa.

Get big shots like Dangote and his likes to contribute to this research, have a programme with them that involves Nigerian scientists working with them on this and also cite the possibilities of setting them up in Nigeria.

This is where our discussions should go not this nonsense trivial anti-american rants and small talk that portrays Nigerian youth as talkative intellectual midgets that lack proper understanding of the issues and have problems with analysis of issues.

Ekundayo7: [size=18pt]WOULD SOME OF YOU [s]CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND "ANYTHING WESTERN HATERS"[/s]PLEASE READ THIS WRITE UP AND SIMMER THE FECK DOWN!!! [/size]

08.08.14
Why the White Americans Got the ‘Secret’ Ebola Serum
After two missionaries were given an experimental treatment for Ebola, questions have swirled about why the hundreds of Africans infected aren’t getting it. For good reasons, it turns out.

A Washington Post blog asks: “Why do two white Americans get the Ebola serum while hundreds of Africans die?”

The New Republic demands: “Why did two U.S. missionaries get an Ebola serum while Africans are left to die?”

That was just media yammering, but it was echoed on streets and in subways by otherwise reasonable people.

Never mind that there seem to have been no more than eight doses of the serum in existence.

Never mind that the white people in question—Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol—who received three of those doses before they were flown home to the U.S. got perilously ill in the first place because they risked their lives helping Ebola victims in Liberia who happened to be black.

And never mind that Samaritan’s Purse would not have established the Ebola clinic in Monrovia and asked Brantly serve as medical director had it thought the life of a white American was worth more than the life of a black African.

If nationality and race did influence the organization’s decision to seek an untested serum for Brantly and Writebol, it was likely only because any Western organization that administers an untested serum to the African population runs the risk of being accused of using blacks as guinea pigs in the way of the long-ago Tuskegee syphilis tests and the 1996 meningitis tests in Nigeria.

That was not a worry with the two white Americans.

Of course, Samantha’s Purse may not have been immune from the sense of urgency that can seize even the most altruistic organizations when one of its own is in mortal danger. The same is true with a fire department when a firefighter is critically injured.

Watch what happens at the scene of a blaze when a radio call of “Mayday!” signals that a firefighter who went in to save others suddenly needs saving himself.

This does not mean firefighters care any less about the people they are trying to save any more than it means Samaritan’s Purse was leaving Africans to die when it began asking U.S. scientists and health workers in the hot zone about experimental treatments described in various scientific papers in recent years.

Samaritan’s Purse ended up in contact with Mapp Biopharmaceutical in San Diego, the lead developer of a drug called ZMapp.

The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

ZMapp is an enhanced version of MB-003, which was developed in conjunction with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). MB-003 consists of three monoclonal—artificially produced—antibodies that proved capable of both deactivating the Ebola virus and tagging it for attack by the victim’s immune system.

A year ago this month, USAMRIID and Mapp announced the results of a study involving Rhesus monkeys that would have caused a sensation had we not been in a long lull between Ebola outbreaks. MB-003 protected 100 percent of the monkeys when administered an hour after exposure and two-thirds of those given the drug 48 hours after exposure.

“We were able to use MB-003 as a true therapeutic countermeasure,” USAMIID virologist Gene Olinger said when the results were announced.

James Pettitt, the study’s lead author, said he and his colleagues would be working with Canadian researchers who had devised a different antibody cocktail. The immediate aim would be to devise the most effective mixture of MB-003 and the Canadian compound and test it in additional monkeys, along with the best dose.

The combination was called ZMAPP. The ultimate results are said to have been even more promising than with MB-003 alone. But Ebola did not seem an imminent threat, and there was no scramble to produce more of the stuff than would be needed for animal toxicity testing and eventually the first human trials, which USAMIID expected to take between five to 10 years.

[size=18pt]The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that there were no more than eight doses of ZMapp in existence when Samaritan's Purse sought some.[/size] Three doses were flown to Liberia. Two were given to Writebol and one to Brantly, who was repeatedly also given a transfusion of blood from a 14-year-old survivor he had treated.

The two stricken Americans were flown to Atlanta, and Brantly in particular seemed to be on the mend. Governments of the affected countries in West African began inquiring about Zmapp. U.S. scientists cautioned that the drug had not yet proven to be as beneficial to humans as it apparently was to monkeys.

“We don’t know if it is effective,” Dr. Heinz Feldmann of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease told The Daily Beast. “We don’t have enough even if it was effective.”

ZMapp is made by inserting modified genes into the cells of tobacco plants whose cells then become mini-factories of the antibodies. The facility where this happens is owned by R.J. Reynolds, which also makes cigarettes that kill by the hundreds of thousands.

Reynolds is now said to be accelerating its effort to do good as well as evil, but tobacco plants grow only so fast, and extracting and purifying antibodies is considerably more complicated than producing cancer sticks. Any significant quantity of ZMapp appears to be months away even if another company with a larger facility joins in the effort.

The question of the serum came up at the press conference President Obama held at the end of this week’s Africa Summit at the White House. He said it would be premature to rush ZMapp to the hot zone.

“Let the science guide us,” he went on to say. “I don't think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful.”

He observed that previous epidemics had been brought under control by effective public health programs.

“We’re focusing on the public health approach right now, but I will continue to seek information about what we’re learning about these drugs going forward,” he said.

Obama did authorize sending kits for a diagnostic Ebola test called the EZ1 Real-Time RT-PCR Assay. His view that the primary focus should be on containment was echoed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control at an emergency congressional hearing held on Thursday even though lawmakers are in recess.

“In terms of the promising drugs, I can assure you that the U.S. government is looking into this very carefully,” Dr. Thomas Frieden said. “But I don’t want there to be false hope out there. Right now, we don’t know if they work.”

The CDC is moving to assist the fight by going to a Level 1 alert and “surging” 50 experts to West Africa. Frieden emphasized that containment will require great care.

“It’s like fighting a forest fire: Leave behind one burning ember, one case undetected, and the epidemic could reignite,” he said.

When it came his turn to testify, Ken Isaacs of Samaritan’s Purse wondered why the forest fire had been allowed to rage for months with little notice beyond those who were being consumed by it. The scandal is not that two white people got an untested serum, but that the deaths of so many black people were ignored until two white people got sick.

“It took two Americans getting the disease in order for the international community and the United States to take serious notice of the largest outbreak of the disease in history,” he said. “The disease is uncontained and out of control in West Africa.”

Isaacs, who is a vice president of the organization, spoke as someone who has been watching the fire rage for months and believes it will be harder to contain than many anticipate. He said that too many people in Western Africa remain suspicious of Western medicine and tied to traditional practices that spread the virus, notably the washing and kissing of the dead. He noted that even now university students in Liberia “continue to mock and deny the existence of Ebola.”

“I think we are going to see the death toll in numbers we cannot imagine,” Ken Isaacs said.

He noted that the disease can travel anywhere “at the speed of an airplane.” He said the ultimate goal should be an effective vaccine.

“In the meantime it is a nasty, bloody disease that we must fight now,” he said.

I don't think it'll make any difference man, they won't bother reading this and their bias won't let them use their brains for once. For them everything is a conspiracy.

Where's that retard winner01? Here's something you should read. That's assuming u can keep your conspiracy ladened brain awake long enough to digest it

Missy89: Good decision. Let them use their head or die.

No free lunch

You got to be kidding me, right?


Are you so naive?

We Nigerians are merely speculating that there is some sort of conspiracy to infect Africa with the virus for the purpose of depopulation. We are not certain of this. Enough of the rumours, abeg! Instead, let us put our heads together to find solutions for this. Africa is blessed with tons of herbs. Can't we find a natural cure for this scourge. I believe there's a herb for every ailment and we should encourage our traditional medicine men to come up with something if orthodox medicine can't help.

redcap: The United States of America, yesterday, dashed the hope of an early cure for Ebola Virus victims in Nigeria when it refused to share the trial drug with Nigeria. US President Barak Obama says it would be premature to share the experimental drug with Africa.

The Federal Government had earlier reached out to the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, in Atlanta, to request for the drug for treatment of EVD affected persons in Nigeria, but President Obama turned down the request, saying it would be far more beneficial to focus on prevention instead.
Nigeria recorded its first Ebola Virus disease fatality on Tuesday when one of the nurses who was one of the primary contacts of the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, passed on. The doctor who treated Sawyer, who died in the country after flying into Lagos, is now ill with Ebola and six other primary contacts are currently ill with the disease in a Lagos hospital where they are quarantined.

Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu and Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku had disclosed on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja that the Federal Government was awaiting the response of the request it made to the CDC on Tuesday.

Addressing the 50 African leaders at the US-African Summit in Washington, President Obama stated that it is “premature” to send an experimental medicine for the treatment of Ebola to West Africa, as he lacked enough information to approve the drug that was already being used on two American aid workers whose conditions were said to have improved by varying degrees.

“We’ve got to let the science guide us and I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful. The Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place.

“The countries affected are the first to admit that what’s happened here is the public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren’t able to identify and then isolate cases quickly enough.

“As a consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic Ebola outbreaks that occurred previously,” he remarked.

Palliative

As a palliative, President Obama announced plans by the US to spend $110 million annually, for three to five years, totall ing $330-$550 million, to help African nations develop rapid reaction peacekeeping forces.

The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.

The experimental medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice’s blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.

Developed by a San Diego Company, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the experimental serum had never been tried before on human beings but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys. Company documents show that four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection.

In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus.


Source:Nigeria recorded its first Ebola Virus disease fatality on Tuesday when one of the nurses who was one of the primary contacts of the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, passed on. The doctor who treated Sawyer, who died in the country after flying into Lagos, is now ill with Ebola and six other primary contacts are currently ill with the disease in a Lagos hospital where they are quarantined.

Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu and Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku had disclosed on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja that the Federal Government was awaiting the response of the request it made to the CDC on Tuesday.

Addressing the 50 African leaders at the US-African Summit in Washington, President Obama stated that it is “premature” to send an experimental medicine for the treatment of Ebola to West Africa, as he lacked enough information to approve the drug that was already being used on two American aid workers whose conditions were said to have improved by varying degrees.

“We’ve got to let the science guide us and I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful. The Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place.

“The countries affected are the first to admit that what’s happened here is the public health systems have been overwhelmed. They weren’t able to identify and then isolate cases quickly enough.

“As a consequence, it spread more rapidly than has been typical with the periodic Ebola outbreaks that occurred previously,” he remarked.

Palliative

As a palliative, President Obama announced plans by the US to spend $110 million annually, for three to five years, totall ing $330-$550 million, to help African nations develop rapid reaction peacekeeping forces.

The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.

The experimental medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice’s blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.

Developed by a San Diego Company, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the experimental serum had never been tried before on human beings but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys. Company documents show that four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection.

In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus.

Source:vanguardngr.com

Oxone:

I don't think it'll make any difference man, they won't bother reading this and their base won't let them use their brains for once. For them everything is a conspiracy.

Where's that retard winner01? Here's something you should read. That's assuming u can keep your conspiracy ladened brain awake long enough to digest it

Once again, your stupidd self has failed to get the point...You have failed to explain how this deadly plague sprang up again, and how it sprang up only in west Africa...I maintain that if any of your loved ones was infected, knowing fully well that they have few weeks to live, maybe the animal that you are will then understand the desperation to use anything or do anything to save their lives irregardless of the possible side effects..U know, All of these shows how backward you are,,u stay in your small shank with your family and think the world is all peachy and rosey and physical and therefore believe every thing the media feeds you hookline and sinker..Get information, Get exposed, Travel to places, Meet reasonably exposed people and maybe then your dumbasss will realize that everything is never as it seems. And It is fooolish people like you that see foreign movies and foreign music and still fail to decipher the messages being passed across to the public saying its just a movie or music...If your parents contributed well to your exposure to cure you of your "blindness, dull mentality, shallow- mindedness, ignorance, illiteracy and stupiddity", then you would know that there is soo much conspiracy going on in the world around you...dumbb three options; 1). stop criticizing those who are campaining for the cure to save the lives of their loved ones in time, 2). seek psychological help or 3)."go and die"

Olucheye: When I did mention on some previous thread about a conspiracy on this Ebola Virus someone said I was making noise....


Can we all see the glaring Capitalist Moves Made by the US??

Not wanting to listen to any input as it might be true and might jeopardize their dark contracts with major pharmaceuticals on the release a drugs that will only manage this situation and not end it. Just the same thing that has being happening to HIV/AIDS

Although I do agree that the discovered drugs might not work a 100% but I'm certain it'll show a flaw that would be easy to modify and develop a perfect solution.
But if a solution is reached, how would they make profits from WHO subventions..


Let me sleep before they say I'm propagating conspiracy theories

Good idea bolded. You didn't even begin make any sense at all. The dumbest conspiracy theories get over 50 likes on NL, so the fact you gat 11 so far should tell you something. "Who subvention"! Are you for real?