Potential clinical treatment for Ebola pandemic

Impact of major disease outbreaks in the third millennium on adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights in low and/or middle-income countries: a systematic scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of young people continue to present a high burden and remain underinvested. This is more so in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), where empirical evidence reveals disruption of SRHR maintenance, need for enhancement of programmes, resources and services during pandemics. Despite the importance of the subject, there is no published review yet combining recent disease outbreaks such as (H1N1/09, Zika, Ebola and SARS-COV-2) to assess their impact on adolescents and youth SRHR in LMICs.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

We will adopt a four-step search to reach the maximum possible number of studies. In the first step, we will carry out a limitedpreliminary search in databases for getting relevant keywords (appendix 1). Second, we will search in four databases: Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Embase and PsycINFO. The search would begin from the inception of the first major outbreak in 2009 (H1N1/09) up to the date of publication of the protocol in early 2022. We will search databases using related keywords, screen title & abstract and review full texts of the selected titles to arrive at the list of eligible studies. In the third stage, we will check their eligibility to the included article's reference list. In the fourth stage, we will check the citations of included papers in phase 2 to complete our study selection. We will include all types of original studies and without any language restriction in our final synthesis. Our review results will be charted for each pandemic separately and include details pertaining to authors, year, country, region of the study, study design, participants (disaggregated by age and gender), purpose and report associated SRHR outcomes. The review will adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guideline (PRISMA-ScR).

PATIENT AND PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT

Patients or public were not involved in this study.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical assessment is not required for this study. The results of the study will be presented in peer-reviewed publications and conferences on adolescent SRHR.

Ébola, abordaje clínico integral

Introducción. El virus del Ébola, antes llamado fiebre hemorrágica del Ébola, es una enfermedad altamente contagiosa con mortalidad entre 50% y 90%, para la cual existen prometedoras opciones de tratamiento que se encuentran en fase de evaluación y uso compasional.Objetivos. Revisar la mejor evidencia médica publicada y analizar el comportamiento de las epidemias por virus del Ébola, sus manifestaciones clínicas, sus complicaciones, los elementos más significativos para su diagnóstico y las nuevas opciones terapéuticas disponibles, para así aprender y aplicar estas experiencias en nuevos brotes.Materiales y métodos. Se realizó una búsqueda sistemática en las bases de datos PubMed, ProQuest, Embase, Redalyc, Ovid, Medline, DynaMed y ClinicalKey durante el periodo 2009-2017 en el contexto internacional, regional y local.Resultados. La revisión sistemática de artículos aportó un total de 51 430 registros, de los cuales 772 eran elegibles; de estos, 722 no eran relevantes, por lo que quedaron incluidos 50. A punto de partida se pudieron precisar los aspectos objeto de esta revisión.Conclusión. La enfermedad causada por el virus del Ébola, a pesar de su alta mortalidad, puede ser prevenida, diagnosticada oportunamente y tratada con efectividad, lo cual permite evaluar su impacto epidemiológico en las áreas endémicas y a nivel mundial. Existe un potencial arsenal terapéutico en fase de experimentación con resultados prometedores.

Anti-Ebola therapies based on monoclonal antibodies: current state and challenges ahead

The 2014 Ebola outbreak, the largest recorded, took us largely unprepared, with no available vaccine or specific treatment. In this context, the World Health Organization declared that the humanitarian use of experimental therapies against Ebola Virus (EBOV) is ethical. In particular, an experimental treatment consisting of a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) produced in tobacco plants and specifically directed to the EBOV glycoprotein (GP) was tested in humans, apparently with good results. Several mAbs with high affinity to the GP have been described. This review discusses our current knowledge on this topic. Particular emphasis is devoted to those mAbs that have been assayed in animal models or humans as possible therapies against Ebola. Engineering aspects and challenges for the production of anti-Ebola mAbs are also briefly discussed; current platforms for the design and production of full-length mAbs are cumbersome and costly.