Surviving Ebola: Scientists discover group of women in west Africa who may be genetically immune to deadly virus
Findings suggest there are people who are exposed to the virus but never become infected, giving scientists the chance to learn which parts of the immune system combat Ebola.
A study of Ebola survivors in west Africa has found a group of women who appear to be immune to the deadly virus. The discovery was made by a team of British and European scientists who are studying Ebola survivors in Guinea.
“These are phenomenal women who have had a horrendous story to tell. They have had lots of contact with the virus, clearing up vomit, diarrhoea, sleeping with children with Ebola overnight, and they never presented with Ebola symptoms and somehow they have an immune response to the virus,” said Prof Miles Carroll, a virologist at the UK government’s chemical and biological weapons research facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire.
It may be that these people are genetically unique and have an innate response strong enough to fight Ebola
Early data from the research also offers a theory as to why survivors have not contracted Ebola for a second time even when the virus lingers on in places such as the testes, spinal cord and eye chamber.
The research bodes well for the 16,000 survivors in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, although British nurse Pauline Cafferkey has shocked experts by suffering complications from an earlier Ebola infection. She is critically ill eight months after being discharged from hospital having apparently recovered from the infection.
The most eye-catching finding in the research came from the parallel study of women who failed to show symptoms of Ebola even though they had been in direct contact with people who had died of the illness. Ebola is highly contagious and is transmitted through bodily fluids including saliva, blood, urine, vomit and faeces, once a patient becomes ill.
The team studied 60 women, 25 of whom were in Guéckédou, the town where the most recent Ebola epidemic in west Africa is believed to have started. Blood tests showed one woman in this subset had Ebola antibodies even though she had never contracted the virus.