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Canada, U.S. to manufacture medicine against Ebola

Xinhua, June 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Canadian government said on Wednesday it has signed a contract worth 4.5 million U.S. dollars with the U.S.-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical to manufacture ZMapp monoclonal antibody (mAb) medicine against Ebola virus that ravaged West Africa.

"Canada has dedicated considerable resources to support health, humanitarian and security efforts on Ebola at home and abroad. Investing in this promising technology strengthens our capacity to respond quickly to protect the health of Canadians," Canadian Minister of Health Rona Ambrose said in a statement.

ZMapp has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical trials in the United States and West Africa and has shown promise when used to treat infected individuals.

The ZMapp medicine, developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, uses two mAbs discovered by scientists at the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory and one mAb discovered by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

The contract secures Canada's access to the Ebola treatment.

Ebola has killed 11,158 of the 27,237 people infected, the WHO said in its latest situation report.

Access to the ZMapp Ebola medicine will complement the Canadian government's overall Ebola preparedness and response activities, the statement said, adding that these activities also include funding for clinical trials for Canada's VSV-EBOV Ebola vaccine, strengthened border measures to screen travelers, and domestic Ebola Rapid Response Teams.

As these innovative experimental treatments are experimental and not yet authorized for commercial use, they would only be used for emergency compassionate use to treat a patient once they have contracted Ebola.

Canada has committed a total of more than 110 million Canadian dollars (some 90 million U.S. dollars) to support health, humanitarian, and security interventions to address the spread of the disease and for further research and development of Ebola medical countermeasures.

Ebola treatments that use mAbs are designed and engineered to find, attach and effectively coat the Ebola virus preventing replication and multiplication of the virus in the body. This allows the body time to mount the appropriate immune response and recover from the infection. Endite