• Question: how do you think they would find a cure for ebola

    Asked by 622gdna29 to Arthur, Clare, Daniel, David, Tora on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by art the epic.
    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      We actually do have a cure for Ebola but it’s really very difficult to make and so we cannot make enough of it for every person who is infected (each day at the moment in some cities in Africa there are around 30 new cases!) but they are working out ways to make it better.

      The lab that I work in however has created a vaccine (because it’s always better to stop people getting it than to make people better who have it) with the help of other labs all around the world and that was given to humans for the first time two weeks ago and seems to work!

      We just need to be 100% sure it works and is safe before we give it to everyone.

    • Photo: Daniel Parsons

      Daniel Parsons answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      That’s a good answer by Arthur – with all diseases the best way to combat them is developing a viable vaccine! But in the meantime the use of antiviral drugs are used – there are quite a few of these but none of them are a very successful.

      The “problem” with making all medicine and finding a cure quickly is that we need to check that 1) it works and 2) it doesn’t have any nasty effects longer term. The new vaccines seem to be doing well in some tests, so the future looks much better. I just takes time.

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