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Cure for Ebola found?

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Admiral
Admiral
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hJLE2DbCy31Uqu4UOvkxXlfZ4ucQ

Monkeys injected with the deadliest strain of Ebola survived after receiving an experimental formula that uses tiny particles of genetic material to disrupt viral reproduction, they said.
It is the first time a drug has protected non-human primates against Ebola, a virus that is sometimes dubbed a "slate wiper" for its ruthless culling of lives.
Ebola is one of a family of so-called filoviruses, which cause haemorrhagic fever, a rare but highly lethal disease in which the patient can bleed to death, sometimes from the mouth, ears and eyes.
Five Ebola strains have been identified since the first case came to light at the Ebola River in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1976.
The deadliest is the Zaire strain, known to virologists by the acronym of ZEBOV (Zaire Ebola virus), which inflicts a death rate of 80 to 90 percent.

Would be great if it works for humans.
 
That sounds promising. In the first study, two thirds of the animals survived; the normal survival rate seems to be one third. In the second study, with a modified course of treatment, one hundred percent survived. Both were very small groups, though. They must now conduct more wide-ranging studies.

And this style of using customized interfering RNA could definitely be used to treat other viruses once they have the method down pat.
 
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