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As the deadly Ebola virus
continues to ravage a wide swath of Western Africa, some of the infected are
turning to an illicit trade in survivors’ blood, despite warnings from the
World Health Organization, RT reports.
Having already killed
2,400 people and infected nearly 5,000 others, and with no cure in sight, the
Ebola virus has triggered the growth of a black market in what is known as
convalescent serum, the protein base of blood that has been collected from
survivors of the epidemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)
The serum is considered
to be especially rich in antibodies that fight against the disease, and has
already been administered to some patients, including Rick Sacra, an American
health worker who has received transfusions from a survivor of the deadly
virus.
“We are supporting use of
whole blood and convalescent serum to manage Ebola virus disease in the West
African Ebola outbreak,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told Politico. “Whole blood has already been used in a
number of centers.”
The
main emphasis of the serum treatment is to “buy time” for those infected,
allowing the body to build up strength to recover.
“To
survive, you have to build up enough antibodies to neutralize the virus,” Phil Smith, medical director
of the bio-containment unit at the hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where Sacra is
being treated, told reporters last week. “We’re
hoping to buy him some time, in other words, to give him antibodies to help his
immune system battle the Ebola virus and let him get ahead of the curve.”
There
is no proven medication to treat the Ebola virus, although an experimental
treatment called ZMapp is still in the development stages. This has forced
those infected with Ebola, feeling they have nothing to lose, to search for
alternative forms of treatment.
As
word spreads about the possible benefits of the convalescent serum, the demand
for ‘survivors’ blood’ has increased, together with all of the inherent risks
of being infected with other equally deadly diseases, including HIV, as well as
possible anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction to the serum.
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AFP Photo / Zoom Dosso
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WHO Director-General
Margaret Chan told reporters that the UN watchdog is committed to helping
countries eliminate the illegal trade in convalescent serum, while at the same
time conducting trial experiments with serum-based treatments. The emphasis,
however, was placed on protecting people from contaminated blood transfusions
that are believed to exist in the black market supply chain.
“It is in the interest of
individuals not to just get convalescent serum without properly done going
through the proper standard and the proper testing because it is important that
there may be other infectious vectors that we need to look at,” Chan told a press
conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The consequences of
people going to extremes to find a cure was demonstrated by a
single healer in an isolated border village in Sierra Leone. The woman
claimed to be in possession of special powers to cure the deadly disease.
“She was claiming to have
powers to heal Ebola. Cases from Guinea were crossing into Sierra Leone for
treatment,”
top medical official, Mohamed Vandi, who was based in the crisis-struck Kenema
district, told AFP.
“She got infected and
died. During her funeral, women around the other towns got infected,” he told the agency. This
set off a chain reaction of infections, helping to further transmit the
disease.
Meanwhile, the rise of a
blood black market has triggered concern over the security of medical supplies
shipped to West Africa from foreign countries. On Tuesday, President Obama
announced a 3,000-troop commitment to Africa in which the Department of Defense
would provide military medical doctors to train up to 500 healthcare workers a
week to handle the crisis, the New York Times reported.
Hospitals in Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone - the epicenter of epidemic - are being pushed to the
physical limits by what the WHO is calling the deadliest Ebola outbreak in
history.
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