Posted on 10/28/2014 11:12:10 AM PDT by JoanVarga
I feel like everyone responsible for bringing this atrocity into our country needs to be shot, burned, tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered, shot some more, and then soundly chastised.
No. The plasma bit is much like a desperate last ditch attempt to do something or anything. The antibodies floating around in plasma after recovery although high compared to a few years from now, are insignificant to someone in the throws of the disease.
Normally, antibodies are circulating in sufficient numbers to kill off a small number of virons that you catch from another diseased person or the environment. Not the trillions of virons that are circulating when you are really sick.
But that’s just it: how are these folks recovering with 100% (so far) recovery rates? They catch it early and treat with plasma donations. They even do this in West Africa.
I get that by the time you’re dissolving it’s too late.
Duncan wasn’t given plasma because there was no compatible source, AND he was pretty far gone. Does the point remain that having antibodies in great supply and early on makes for the most successful rate of survival?
It is from the article, of course, and it is striking because it is not based on the author's opinion. It is based on facts in the public record that was available to all.
It does reasonably appear that anti-American forces are not just merely at the gates, but rather now within the compound.
I blame the politicians for this failure. Americans hired them and paid them handsomely to guard against this very danger. Their only excuse can be that they had compelling evidence HC indeed presented the greater threat.
“... to someone in the throws of the disease.”
It is “throes”; I suppose one could argue it is “throw-ups” if one wanted to dissemble.
Ultimately your body has to produce its own antibodies. There are lots of survivors who got essentially no treatment. They survived by an immune response even while Ebola attacked their immune system.
Do you conclude that there is no impetus or advantage in having plasma donors on hand?
1.The fact that they do this in West Africa (death rates 70-90%) should give you a sense of the desperation to do something, anything including catch malaria and HIV.
2. The peak viral load is about day 8 (fever, malaise). The meltdown is the result of a runaway inflammatory response by the body in its futile attempt to kill the virus (hemorrhage, vomiting, diarrhea). Now shedding all the virions made back on day 8.
3. We won't know about our success rate until there are more cases. A study where n=4 is unlikely to be significant.
5. We may end up with better outcomes because of better care and more aggressive use of anti-inflammatories so the patient has time to mount the CD-8 T-cell immune response.
So educated and still incapable of writing a coherent sentence!
Thank you. That is more in line with the sort of information I’m trying to get my mind around. It’s a multi-faceted approach: drugs, transfusions, protocols. The one standout in the media seems to keep coming back as plasma donation and I don’t get a clear picture of other attempts. The experimental drug was a big deal, yes? But we don’t hear much about its interaction in these subsequent cases.
Yes, Unlike the donated plasma Zmapp is a huge dose of monoclonal antibodies, binding to the viron, transferring the virus to the macrophage to be processed by the immune system (activating T-cells which kill infected cells).
Unless the patient gets early activation of CD-8 T-cells they almost all die.
This is an RNA retrovirus. HIV is also an RNA retrovirus (the similarities end there) and there are anti-virals that may also be effective. These are prohibitively expensive for West Africa but may be doable in first world countries.
An effective vaccine may be possible but remember we've been looking for a vaccine for HIV to no effect.
UN Agenda 21 calls for the Earth’s population to be reduced by 85%. Ebola may be the tool.
Plasma donation seems to help. I guess it is a mystery right now how patients recover. Unfortunately we are going to run the experiment some more here so we shall see how well it works in a few more cases.
I suspect something else is the tool, which is unable to be halted, but this Administration needs ebola to be the scapegoat to avoid accountability.
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