A new antiviral compound holds a promise in protecting humans against the Ebola virus soon. This is after hopeful results from a preclinical study showed the compound, known as GS-5734, to have completely protected nonhuman primates from getting contracted by the deadly virus.
Medical News Today writes that there were over 11,000 deaths and 28,000 confirmed and suspected cases in the largest outbreak of Ebola that hit the areas of West Africa according to the World Health Organization. These alarming numbers highlight the need for developing an effective treatment against the virus as there has been no single vaccine approved for use to date.
Thus, efforts by a group of researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with principal investigator Travis Warren, Ph.D. of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USARIID) sufficed, and they were able to conduct initial screening for treatment design from the whole compound library of the Gilead Sciences in Foster City, California. Out of all compounds, the GS-5734 molecule was found to have an encouraging antiviral activity and was chosen to proceed to further enhancement and analysis.
The efficacy of the molecule was tested against several pathogens including Ebola virus. GS-5734 was found active against Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, Marburg virus, and multiple variants of Ebola. Monkeys infected with Ebola were also used as subjects for treatment, all of which survived. Internal bleeding, tissue damage and other physical signs of the disease were also substantially reduced as noted.
As Warren said in EurekAlert, the compound works by blocking the virus' RNA replication to keep it from making copies of itself. "If the virus can't make copies of itself, the body's immune system has time to take over and fight off the infection," he added.
"This is the first example of a small-molecule which can be easily prepared and made on a large scale that shows substantive post-exposure protection against Ebola virus in non-human primates," says lead researcher Sina Bavari, Ph.D in EurekAlert.
As of the moment, the research team is conducting the initial phase clinical trial to test safety of the compound in human subjects. Soon enough, if everything goes well, they will have the compound approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
