By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Columnist
Since 2002, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel has been traveling to Africa more than four times a year testing the blood of Ebola-infected survivors.
Lobel is trying to figure out exactly why the more than 120 subjects in his studies either don’t get sick or survive a bout with the virulent virus while others succumb to its hemorrhagic effects that are so deadly to many other humans.
Their blood seems to mount a strong defense that protects them.
“We’re looking for those people who have the best antibodies to neutralize the virus,” Lobel told The Jewish Sound. “We identified those survivors with the best immunity taking the antibodies from their blood and then producing them so that they could, hopefully, be used as a therapeutic for future outbreaks of Sudan Ebola virus.”
According to Lobel, the United States should not be concerned about an outbreak of Ebola virus, particularly from treating infected patients, because it’s not airborne, and infection requires having direct contact with an infected human or animal.
Lobel said that the U.S. health care system has decades of experience successfully treating individuals who’ve returned from far-flung locations with similar infections.
“The hysteria here is way overblown,” said Lobel. “This reminds me of the HIV cases in the ’80s. Influenza kills thousands in the U.S. every year. I think the major thing we should worry about is that we’re not investing enough in infectious disease research.”
Lobel received $1.2 million of a $28 million, five-year National Institutes of Health grant awarded to a consortium of scientists to create a center dedicated to finding a treatment for two deadly hemorrhagic fever viruses, including Ebola. The grant will help Lobel isolate those defensive antibodies while his team reproduces them for testing in animals.
“Viruses move from the equator upward,” he said, “so there’s a great threat that viruses can move from Latin America up into the southern United States. Texas is actually right on that edge.”
Researchers have identified five strains of Ebola. Reston, which is not lethal to humans, and Tai Forest which is very rare. The other three are the Sudan, the Bundibugyo, and the Zaire.
“The current outbreak is the strain that’s known as Zaire,” said Lobel. “That’s historically been the most lethal although the case fatality rate of this current outbreak is not as bad as the original outbreak of Zaire — probably about 60 percent.”
Lobel studies two Ebola strains and a related hemorrhagic virus, the Marburg virus.
In another study by Lobel and his team, doctors have been collecting blood samples from survivors who have maintained their immunity over time. Every few months, Lobel’s group takes their white blood cells in hopes of identifying those that produce the antibodies that are strongest at neutralizing the virus.
“People’s immune responses are very different.” said Lobel. “It’s unlikely that people have different barriers to infection because viruses get into your mucous membrane and cuts in your skin. It’s a matter of the differences of the genetic makeup of a person that probably gives somebody a better capability of surviving.”
Lobel’s best guess, so far, is that an infected person who gets sick has an immune system that just doesn’t make the right combination of antibodies to fend off the virus. But the precise factor in the survivor’s blood is still unknown.
“The one thing we do know,” said Lobel, “is that people who don’t survive have a disregulated immune response — it’s not producing the right combination of molecules to give an appropriate response.”
Outbreaks of the Ebola virus play a relatively small role in the spread of disease in the general population all across Africa, according to Lobel. The more urgent health threats are infectious diseases like dysentery, cholera, childhood diseases, and plague as well as widespread crop failures and animal diseases, which he also researches.
“The animal diseases are the biggest problem in Africa and nobody talks about it because it doesn’t affect people,” Lobel said. “But interestingly, it affects people in a much larger way than Ebola. it leads to security concerns because when people don’t have enough food it leads to a lot of unrest.’
And although researchers do know that outbreaks of other diseases, such as measles, are worse in the developing world, he said, and that nutrition and general health do play a part in the ability to fight off diseases, it’s not the determinative factor.
“It’s not a strong or weak immune system — it’s the right response that counts.”
Longtime JTNews correspondent and freelance journalist Janis Siegel has covered international health research for SELF magazine and campaigns for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.