Mac researches Ebola immunization

A researcher from McMaster University is among four scientists who say the virus may be silently immunizing large numbers of people, who never fall ill or infect others. If true, this could have a potentially huge impact on how the current outbreak is fought. So can someone be immune to Ebola?

These scientists say there’s reason to believe there are people in West Africa who have been exposed to the Ebola outbreak, yet have not gotten sick, and it’s important that the medical community learn now to what extent this is taking place, and how.

They believe there are people who have anti-bodies allowing them to fight off the deadly virus. This is based on previous research showing evidence of a-symptomatic Ebola infection in previous outbreaks. However, it’s still unknown if such infection provides immunity. That’s why researchers say now is the time to start paying attention and collect blood from Ebola survivors and those already exposed to the virus, start studying what anti-bodies are there and looking for correlation.

Jonathan Dushoff, McMaster University: “Use that protection to help fight spread. Take blood from Ebola survivors. They’re calling on health officials to look into this.

They call on public health authorities to determine how commonplace it is for people to be infected by Ebola without ever developing symptoms or spreading the disease and whether these individuals are then protected from future infection. And the time to do it is now.

“Although resources on the ground are scarce, now is the best time to learn more about immunity to Ebola, and the sooner we know the sooner the knowledge can be used to stop the epidemic,” said Dushoff.

“Ultimately, knowing whether a large segment of the population in the afflicted regions is immune to Ebola could save lives. If we can reliably identify who they are, they could become people who help with disease-control tasks, and that would prevent exposing others who aren’t immune. We might not have to wait until we have a vaccine to use immune individuals to reduce the spread of disease.”

The letter notes that researchers have found evidence of asymptomatic Ebola infection in the aftermath of earlier Ebola outbreaks, but it is yet unknown whether such infection provides immunity. The authors conclude that resolving this question and identifying naturally immunized individuals could prove critical in public health efforts to contain the disease, as well as in accurately estimating the likely spread of the disease.

Jonathan Dushoff: “Now is the time to start collecting information, and just collecting blood. So if you’re going in and paying attention to a group of people or trying to protect a particular group of people, we can collect their blood and start studying what anti-bodies are there. And as we observe and try and protect these people, we can also be looking at the correlation. We can be freezing the samples until resources become available.”

Dushoff says this is all in the preliminary stages. The letter containing this call to action was only released this morning to the medical community, but the researchers are hopeful they’ll get a quick response from their colleagues.