Drug blocks Ebola-like virus in monkey tests

An experimental drug treatment can help monkeys survive an otherwise deadly infection with a tropical virus called Marburg, which is similar to Ebola, researchers said Wednesday.

The findings in the journal Science Translational Medicine could speed efforts to bring to market a drug treatment against Ebola, a deadly hemorrhagic virus that is sweeping across West Africa in the largest outbreak to date.

There is no available drug or vaccine for Ebola, which has killed 1,350 people and infected 2,473 since March in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea and Liberia.

Marburg is from the same family as the Ebola virus and also causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

Fatality rates range from 25 percent to 80 percent, and like Ebola, it is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids.

The study tested a Marburg virus drug, made by Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, on 16 monkeys.

One group was given the treatment 30-45 minutes after exposure to a lethal dose of the Angola strain of Marburg virus. Other groups were treated one, two and three days following the infection.

“All treated animals in all four studies survived,” said lead author Thomas Geisbert, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.