The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that patients suffering from the Ebola disease will have access to treatment using treated blood or serum from recovered patients in a matter of weeks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that patients suffering from the Ebola disease will have access to treatment using treated blood or serum from recovered patients in a matter of weeks.
The BBC reports that the WHO has developed partnerships to introduce serum treatment in Ebola hotspots such as Liberia, which is currently experiencing the highest incidence of Ebola infections.
Serum is simply blood from recovered patients which contains antibodies which can help fight off disease when transfused into sick patients.
WHO Assistant Director General for Health System and Innovation, Dr. Marie Kieny, has stated that a facility in Liberia may be ready to start harvesting and treatment of serum in a matter of weeks.
"There are partnerships which are starting to be put in place to have capacity in the three countries to safely extract plasma and make preparation that can be used for the treatment of infective patients.”
News of the planned serum production comes at a time when the death toll of the Ebola virus disease is expected to begin to double every few weeks as the disease spins out of control.