Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Translation Google
Ebola: France will lead unpublished tests in Guinea
By Pauline Fr?our - the 21/10/2014
A Japanese antiviral serum therapy and a test of quick diagnosis will be tested on patients very soon.
No, the French research has not found "the" miracle treatment against Ebola, which remains to this day nonexistent. But the actors, gathered within the National Alliance for Life Sciences and Health (Aviesan), have developed several projects to advance the fight against the disease in recent months. They were presented Tuesday.
Time for medical research account ordinarily in years. But faced with the meteoric rise of hemorrhagic fever in West Africa, where it has already killed more than 4,500 , scientists received the green light and even encouragement from the World Health Organization to accelerate and reinvent clinical validation procedures.
Associating molecules
Inserm team of Dr. Denis Malvy, a specialist in tropical diseases at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, will evaluate on patients the effectiveness of favipiravir. This antiviral, already marketed in Japan for the treatment of severe influenza, has several advantages: it has demonstrated its safety, it is administered orally and is available now in industrial quantities. The researchers believe that the molecule could help break the spread of the virus in the early days of onset of symptoms, but this remains to be verified.
Scientists work will be concurrently in two directions. On one hand, a clinical trial set up in partnership with Sakoba Keita, head of prevention and fight against the disease in Guinea which will focus on about sixty Guinean patients. The tests will begin in the coming days, and preliminary results are expected in January. Volunteers will receive treatment for 10 days. "If efficacy against the virus is observed, the molecule will be incorporated in February in a strategy on a larger scale," says Dr. Malvy.
In parallel, the P4 laboratory in Lyon (Jean M?rieux-INSERM) continue testing on monkeys to determine the dose, route and the optimal dosing frequency.
But even in case of positive signals, "no miracle is to be expected from that single molecule," warns Prof. Jean-Fran?ois Delfraissy, coordinator of international and domestic operations response to the crisis of Ebola. "we will certainly have to combine multiple molecules or therapeutics, somewhat in the manner of tritherapy for HIV."
A result in 15 minutes
The cocktail could include molecules tested in other countries or even treatments of interest against Ebola that has not yet been identified. This is also the task of Inserm team and Enyo Pharma to review tens of authorized molecules for other diseases, in the perspective of isolating and testing new interesting profiles.
All these paths do not exclude serum therapy, which will also be the subject of clinical trials. This method of purifying plasma of cured persons to recover neutralizing antibodies and to reinject to patients, will be provided by the French Blood Establishment, with results expected in February or March. "This is a major challenge, I do not know if we can meet it," insists, careful, Jean-Fran?ois Delfraissy, highlighting the difficulties in ensuring the safety of donors and recipients, and to recruit volunteers among the survivors. "They prefer to forget what happened to them," he notes.
Another well advanced path: the development of a rapid diagnostic test, similar to a pregnancy test, giving an answer in 15 minutes from a drop of blood. This would be a great improvement over the current test, which requires 6-7 hours in a laboratory with a very high level of security. The eZyscreen developed in two months by the ECA, will be produced by the end of October in several hundred copies to be tested on patients. An essential challenge when we know that a patient detected and therefore taken care of earlier has a much better chance of overcoming the disease.
http://sante.lefigaro.fr/actualite/2014/10/21/22950-ebola-france-va-tester-traitements-guinee
Ebola: France will lead unpublished tests in Guinea
By Pauline Fr?our - the 21/10/2014
A Japanese antiviral serum therapy and a test of quick diagnosis will be tested on patients very soon.
No, the French research has not found "the" miracle treatment against Ebola, which remains to this day nonexistent. But the actors, gathered within the National Alliance for Life Sciences and Health (Aviesan), have developed several projects to advance the fight against the disease in recent months. They were presented Tuesday.
Time for medical research account ordinarily in years. But faced with the meteoric rise of hemorrhagic fever in West Africa, where it has already killed more than 4,500 , scientists received the green light and even encouragement from the World Health Organization to accelerate and reinvent clinical validation procedures.
Associating molecules
Inserm team of Dr. Denis Malvy, a specialist in tropical diseases at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, will evaluate on patients the effectiveness of favipiravir. This antiviral, already marketed in Japan for the treatment of severe influenza, has several advantages: it has demonstrated its safety, it is administered orally and is available now in industrial quantities. The researchers believe that the molecule could help break the spread of the virus in the early days of onset of symptoms, but this remains to be verified.
Scientists work will be concurrently in two directions. On one hand, a clinical trial set up in partnership with Sakoba Keita, head of prevention and fight against the disease in Guinea which will focus on about sixty Guinean patients. The tests will begin in the coming days, and preliminary results are expected in January. Volunteers will receive treatment for 10 days. "If efficacy against the virus is observed, the molecule will be incorporated in February in a strategy on a larger scale," says Dr. Malvy.
In parallel, the P4 laboratory in Lyon (Jean M?rieux-INSERM) continue testing on monkeys to determine the dose, route and the optimal dosing frequency.
But even in case of positive signals, "no miracle is to be expected from that single molecule," warns Prof. Jean-Fran?ois Delfraissy, coordinator of international and domestic operations response to the crisis of Ebola. "we will certainly have to combine multiple molecules or therapeutics, somewhat in the manner of tritherapy for HIV."
A result in 15 minutes
The cocktail could include molecules tested in other countries or even treatments of interest against Ebola that has not yet been identified. This is also the task of Inserm team and Enyo Pharma to review tens of authorized molecules for other diseases, in the perspective of isolating and testing new interesting profiles.
All these paths do not exclude serum therapy, which will also be the subject of clinical trials. This method of purifying plasma of cured persons to recover neutralizing antibodies and to reinject to patients, will be provided by the French Blood Establishment, with results expected in February or March. "This is a major challenge, I do not know if we can meet it," insists, careful, Jean-Fran?ois Delfraissy, highlighting the difficulties in ensuring the safety of donors and recipients, and to recruit volunteers among the survivors. "They prefer to forget what happened to them," he notes.
Another well advanced path: the development of a rapid diagnostic test, similar to a pregnancy test, giving an answer in 15 minutes from a drop of blood. This would be a great improvement over the current test, which requires 6-7 hours in a laboratory with a very high level of security. The eZyscreen developed in two months by the ECA, will be produced by the end of October in several hundred copies to be tested on patients. An essential challenge when we know that a patient detected and therefore taken care of earlier has a much better chance of overcoming the disease.
http://sante.lefigaro.fr/actualite/2014/10/21/22950-ebola-france-va-tester-traitements-guinee