African demand for Ebola drug grows as it completely heals monkeys in lab test

Monkeys infected with the Ebola virus survived after being treated with an experimental drug in a study that suggests the drug may be effective even after severe symptoms are present.

Monkeys were given three doses of the antibody-based treatment ZMapp starting three to five days after being infected with a lethal dose of Ebola. All 18 monkeys treated with ZMapp survived, while three that were not given the medicine died, according to the results published in the journal .

"It is a really, really important study" as it is the longest researchers have waited after infecting monkeys with Ebola to protect all of them with a drug, said Thomas Geisbert, a virologist at the University of Texas who was not involved in the research.

Some Ebola patients have been treated with ZMapp, though the maker of the experimental vaccine, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, said its supply was exhausted. Three health-care workers in Liberia have also been treated with the drug. Liberian officials have confirmed that one of them died.\

The current outbreak had made more than 3,000 people ill and killed 1,552 as of last Tuesday in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, putting it on a pace to cause more deaths than all previous Ebola outbreaks combined, and prompting the World Health Organisation to declare it a global health emergency.