Could an Ebola Treatment Already Exist?
Original article from: BU Today posted on June 9, 2015. by Rich Barlow
What if Zoloft and Vascor—safe prescription drugs that you can pick up at your CVS for depression and heart trouble, respectively—could treat Ebola?
A government study led by a researcher at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) suggests that this may be the case. If confirmed effective in humans—a finding that immunologist Gene Olinger says will take several years—doctors might sprint to a treatment well ahead of the standard 15-year, $1 billion-and-up process of developing and marketing a new drug.
When the researchers treated 10 mice infected with Ebola with Vascor (bepridil), customarily used to control blood pressure in heart patients, all the mice survived the often-deadly virus. When they treated 10 mice with the antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline), 7 survived. The next step, Olinger says, will be to test the drugs in guinea pigs and monkeys.