Recently there has been a huge outbreak of the Ebola virus. More than 9,400 people worlwide have died because of this disease. All signs are showing that the disease will not be stopping and possibly spreading to West Africa.
A group of scientics at Texas Biomed have studied ebola for over 10 years with 5 of those being focused on possible therapy options. Through much research they were able to find that two pore channels (TPCs) must be triggered in an infected cell for the virus to be able to function inside of that cell. With this finding they also were able to find that certain medications would be potential cures for the virus.
One of the possible cures is medication that is currently used for patients with high blood pressure. The drug is able to turn TPCs on and off. Tetrandrine which is a Chinese herb, was tested on mice and actually proved to stop the Ebola virus from multiplying and protected them from the virus. No side effects seems to come from using this drug on Ebola infected mice. This finding is promising in that potential cures for Ebola can be found soon enough and save thousands of lives.
I found this article interesting in that the Ebola epidemic has been all over the news recently and a potential cure can save so many lives. Ebola is a terrible virus that causes a hemorrhage fever. If the Chinese herb showed a positive outcome on the lab mice hopefully scientists can make it possible to use on humans. Of course more research would have to be done to see if an even more harmful mutation occurs from the drug, but there is still hope in that it will be successful.
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I agree, this research has the potential to save thousands of lives once the drug is found to cure Ebola in humans. Many lives have been lost since the Ebola virus was discovered several months ago. The virus has scared everyone around the world since most people who had caught the virus died. Countries around the world even took precautions to prevent this virus from spreading by checking people at the airports if they're sick while traveling.
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