The family of Nancy Writebol, one of the missionary medical practitioners that contracted the Ebola virus while on a joint Samaritan’s Purse-SIM team, was already planning her funeral as she lay stricken with Ebola in Liberia amid the disease’s deadliest recorded outbreak.
She and her colleague, Dr. Kent Brantly, who have both been flown to the United States are defying odds to stay alive…and seem to be getting better.
Writebol’s two sons expect to communicate with her soon, Johnson said. The family was considering funeral arrangements for her just last week, days after she became sick, David Writebol said through Johnson.
“Yet we kept our faith, (and) now we have real reason to be hopeful,” David Writebol said in a statement read by Johnson.
Her improved condition may not be unconnected with an experimental, U.S.-manufactured drug, ZMapp, which she and her colleague were given in Liberia, although it has never been subjected to clinical trials.
The medicine is thought to work by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells, reports CNN. It’s a three-mouse monoclonal antibody — meaning mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus, and the antibodies generated within the mice’s blood were harvested to create the medicine.
Have we found a cure?
Internist and gastroenterologist, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez however said while Brantly and Writebol’s conditions actually improved after taking the drug, the serum shouldn’t be seen as a miracle cure.
“Let’s be cautious. We don’t even know really if this serum is working,” said Rodriguez.
“I’m glad now that these patients were brought to a hospital where so many tests can be done, where they can see the response of their body to this serum. We don’t know if these patients are naturally getting better, or whether the serum is really doing something.”
Writebol and Kent are being treated at the Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, in special isolation units.
1,603 cases of infection has been reported across Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, with 887 of them dead as of Friday, according to the World Health Organization said.
They invented d virus why won’t they have d cure.
@Sheila, some of you have no sense at all.You are not informed.How dis they invent the virus?
You are not informed @Rayoftruth,Sheila is absolutely right,most of this mishap is purely for commercial reasons. How do you think US make their money? Now read this up:
CURE FOR EBOLA
Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol are American missionaries in Liberia. They contracted the virus. Kent Brantley, began experiencing the symptoms on July 22. He called his wife to say goodbye that he was dying. 2days later, Nancy began experiencing the ebola symptoms too. They isolated themselves but were evacuated to America a few days ago and they received an injection known as Zmapp. Within an hour of receiving the injection the infection left and they began walking about. According to the scientists the drug worked on monkeys but hasn’t been tested on humans. It is an experimental drug.
So this cure has been available since and hundreds of people are dying in Africa. I believe they were hoarding the cure for their sick, twisted reasoning. Now that it has been confirmed to work on humans why don’t you send it to Africa to cure those in pains? They said no, that they need to still work on the drugs to improve it. If you ask me these people are making a lot of money from the outbreak of diseases in Africa. They are making lots of money when the government pays their health workers to come to the aid of their countries, they make enough money when companies pump in money to their accounts urging them to find a cure. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Ebola was manufactured in a lab and taken to West Africa and infected some monkeys. Why are west African monkeys the only ones with the virus? All these gives one questions to ask. Send the cure and they said they need to perfect it, they need more serums cuz they only produced a few. You can imagine, when you have produced a successful cure producing more of it shouldn’t be a problem.
They said a vaccine would be more effective cuz even after being cured the cured might get infected again. I believe that, a vaccine is like a preventive drug that makes you immune to the virus. Alright make the vaccine, they said no company is ready to sponsor the vaccine that what they sponsor is the cure yet the cure is still being hoarded. Thank God an American was infected we wouldn’t have known of a cure, they couldn’t let two of their own die but hundreds of ours are dying.
DON’T EVER TELL ME RACISM IS OVER!!!