By Tiffany Ng '20
The Ebola virus is one that is highly infectious and can quickly cause thousands of fatalities, as it did in 2014. Researchers have been working on finding a drug that can combat the virus if such an epidemic were to occur again. ZMapp is one of the more promising drugs that can be used to treat patients with Ebola.The disease took more than 11,000 people’s lives and have made 28,000 more people sick between 2014 and 2016. Even though ZMapp was still an experimental drug at the time of the Ebola epidemic, it made its way up to the top of the list of potential treatments for Ebola after two American aid workers were quickly cured following this drug treatment. Naturally, the drug became highly demanded by doctors and aid workers despite very little quantities of the drug available.In March of 2015, researchers began a randomized clinical trial to test whether the drug was effective. All patients were given the standard care treatment, but half were randomly assigned to receive an addition of ZMapp. Results show that 37% of patients receiving only the standard supportive measures died while 22% of patients who received both the standard supportive measures and ZMapp died. Despite results that suggest the drug is effective, the difference in mortality rate was not statistically significant.This study was carried out during the epidemic, so the conditions were not ideal. ZMapp was usually administered one week after a patient had been infected with the virus. This meant there would be a delayed effect that could lessen the optimal impact of the drug. Also, seven out of eight patients who died did not receive their second of three dosages of ZMapp, leaving questions as to whether they could have healed if they received the full treatment plan.It appears to be generally beneficial to use ZMapp in addition to the standard supportive measures when treating Ebola patients, however, ZMapp may not be the key factor in survival. More research needs to be conducted as to whether we can rely on ZMapp as being the gold standard cure to Ebola.Sources:http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/11/health/ebola-fast-facts/index.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/health/ebola-drug-zmapp/index.htmlhttp://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1604330