Ebola and Infectious diseases

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Profile Julie
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Message 1589394 - Posted: 20 Oct 2014, 19:32:29 UTC - in response to Message 1589378.  

Let me put it another way. The serum he got was experimental. There were only 2 portions of it. They gave him 1 but he made them give it to his nurse instead. Then they gave him the last one. It's a very time consuming procedure to make the serum, and it doesn't cure you. It only helps to hold off the infection until your body starts to make antibodies. The only cure for this disease is for your body to make Antibodies to the virus. As the infection gets worse, your body tries to fight it off using the natural defenses that it has for all infections. This includes the releasing of chemicals and destroying infected disease or blood. You eventually get to a point where either your body starts to make antibodies and fights of the virus(hopefully) or your body collapses and fails. So it's a balancing act of your body. If you are lucky, your antibodies fight it off. If you aren't, you die. The only preventative measure would be if they manage to make a vaccine for it. And they haven't been able to do that yet. They are attempting to making some but haven't been able to produce one yet. until then its a sit and wait game. The best you can do is supportive therapy for someone.


The fact remains they had to seize the opportunity to recreate the serum for a good cause, especially in a crisis situation like the appearance of the Ebola virus. I guess they just hadn't the funds... Thanx for explaining Zalster:)
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Message 1589596 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 6:26:50 UTC - in response to Message 1589394.  

Let me put it another way. The serum he got was experimental. There were only 2 portions of it. They gave him 1 but he made them give it to his nurse instead. Then they gave him the last one. It's a very time consuming procedure to make the serum, and it doesn't cure you. It only helps to hold off the infection until your body starts to make antibodies. The only cure for this disease is for your body to make Antibodies to the virus. As the infection gets worse, your body tries to fight it off using the natural defenses that it has for all infections. This includes the releasing of chemicals and destroying infected disease or blood. You eventually get to a point where either your body starts to make antibodies and fights of the virus(hopefully) or your body collapses and fails. So it's a balancing act of your body. If you are lucky, your antibodies fight it off. If you aren't, you die. The only preventative measure would be if they manage to make a vaccine for it. And they haven't been able to do that yet. They are attempting to making some but haven't been able to produce one yet. until then its a sit and wait game. The best you can do is supportive therapy for someone.


The fact remains they had to seize the opportunity to recreate the serum for a good cause, especially in a crisis situation like the appearance of the Ebola virus. I guess they just hadn't the funds... Thanx for explaining Zalster:)

Julie, They (were,are) grasping at straws. They havent a clue if the blood plasma thing works.
They were scared crapless that it got so out of hand they would try anything. They got lucky this time. Maybe. It aint over untill the lady sings.
And then I would hope that the medical community from all over the world would step up and say lets get a vaccine for this damn diasese! And the worlds governtments would say, Ok lets do this.
But I doubt it.
Why find a cure that might take lots of money, When we need the money to fight each other over stupid crap.
[/quote]

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Message 1589625 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 8:31:56 UTC - in response to Message 1589596.  
Last modified: 21 Oct 2014, 8:32:45 UTC

Let me put it another way. The serum he got was experimental. There were only 2 portions of it. They gave him 1 but he made them give it to his nurse instead. Then they gave him the last one. It's a very time consuming procedure to make the serum, and it doesn't cure you. It only helps to hold off the infection until your body starts to make antibodies. The only cure for this disease is for your body to make Antibodies to the virus. As the infection gets worse, your body tries to fight it off using the natural defenses that it has for all infections. This includes the releasing of chemicals and destroying infected disease or blood. You eventually get to a point where either your body starts to make antibodies and fights of the virus(hopefully) or your body collapses and fails. So it's a balancing act of your body. If you are lucky, your antibodies fight it off. If you aren't, you die. The only preventative measure would be if they manage to make a vaccine for it. And they haven't been able to do that yet. They are attempting to making some but haven't been able to produce one yet. until then its a sit and wait game. The best you can do is supportive therapy for someone.


The fact remains they had to seize the opportunity to recreate the serum for a good cause, especially in a crisis situation like the appearance of the Ebola virus. I guess they just hadn't the funds... Thanx for explaining Zalster:)

Julie, They (were,are) grasping at straws. They havent a clue if the blood plasma thing works.
They were scared crapless that it got so out of hand they would try anything. They got lucky this time. Maybe. It aint over untill the lady sings.
And then I would hope that the medical community from all over the world would step up and say lets get a vaccine for this damn diasese! And the worlds governtments would say, Ok lets do this.
But I doubt it.
Why find a cure that might take lots of money, When we need the money to fight each other over stupid crap.


So unfortunately +1:(

Something very fishy the way they 'handle' the virus, I don't trust it one bit! There were only 2 portions and oh so luckily for them the 2 persons who received it miraculously healed??? No, they didn't have to wait until their body created antibodies... Now how about that??? Poor other Ebola victims, the suckers are quite the victim to their society, or rather the almighty American society. 50 to 90% die of the disease. The least they could do was to make a bit more of the damn serum, eventho it's time consuming to make it but as you say James, they need their money for their stupid Ego and money games. I'd say they can take their money and shove it where the sun never shines. It's disappointing to see how much people really care for each other...
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Message 1589690 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 11:43:58 UTC

As this thread reached 777 posts already, I'll pm the OP to start an new one.
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Message 1589704 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 12:37:34 UTC
Last modified: 21 Oct 2014, 12:48:45 UTC

I'd be surprised if no one is working on a way to mass produce larger quantities of this experimental serum as we speak.

The reason they ran out is quite simply that it was an experimental serum, complicated to make and, at the time, untested.
Laboratory conditions are only useful for manufacturing very small quantities of substances (maybe up to gram scale) . Working out how to produce things on a larger scale (kilograms) takes time, as laboratory equipment doesn't scale very well.

The anti-fungal drugs i work with are an example.
Normally i produce small quantities, as biological tests only require a few milligrams.
Now, let's say there's an outbreak of a disease that one of my experimental drugs (i'll call it NK134) has been shown to be effective against. 2000 people are affected by this disease.
The IC50 of NK134 is 1.4 mg/kg. So an 80 kg human would require 112 mg to treat them.
I have (i've checked) 51 mg of NK134 in the freezer. Less than half the amount required to treat a person.
It took me 7 months to develop this drug, through the various stages of testing, modification and refinement necessary.
My final variant, takes minimum 11 days from starting materials to pure product. In that run, i produced 60 mg.
The equipment in my lab could probably produce around three times this amount in one process, so i could make 180 mg in 11 days.
Or, simply put, enough to cure 1 person a week.

Those 2000 people are going to take some time.
Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.
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Message 1589706 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 12:48:56 UTC - in response to Message 1589704.  

I'd be surprised if no one is working on a way to mass produce larger quantities of this experimental serum as we speak.

The reason they ran out is quite simply that it was an experimental serum, complicated to make and, at the tim,e untested.
Laboratory conditions are only useful for manufacturing very small quantities of substances (up to gram scale) . Working out how to produce things on a larger scale (kilograms) takes time, as laboratory equipment doesn't scale very well.



Me too Simon, me too, it's not like they don't have the budget for it and the government did know the serum was there (of course) Only really foolish rich bigwigs wouldn't do anything with it or grab the chance to use that serum. Quite a few really foolish rich bigwigs there are tho... *scratches head*
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Message 1589781 - Posted: 21 Oct 2014, 23:22:17 UTC

Locking thread. OP will start a new one due to length.

Thank you.
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Message boards : Politics : Ebola and Infectious diseases


 
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