Why didn't Thomas Duncan receive Brantly's blood when the others have???

originally posted by: roadgravel
I hear the term type A for him. Didn't mention + or -.

Whom? Brantly or Duncan?

originally posted by: feldercarb

originally posted by: roadgravel
I hear the term type A for him. Didn't mention + or -.

Whom? Brantly or Duncan?

Brantly

type A, per news

a reply to: roadgravel

Then Brantly, if he is A(-) can give blood to people with blood types A(-), A(+), AB(-) or AB(+).

If Brantly is A(+) he can only give blood to people with blood types A(+) or AB(+). Thus it is likely that he is A(-).

originally posted by: loveguy
Seems a might unsettling to think if your blood-type falls within a certain range-and they're not addressing that range with the miracle cure?...

The miracle cure is the antibodies that a previously infected person has built up in their blood. They are transferring the antibodies from a previously infected person to a recently infected person via a portion of the blood. IF IF the antibodies could be isolated and kept functional then they could be transferred to all patients. IF IF scientists could replicate the specific antibody with functionality intact then there would be no need for blood donors. I don't know if our current level of science can perform these manipulations.


Also, I believe that vaccines are already manufactured to immunize against Ebola. The vaccines were not tested on humans due to infrequent nature of Ebola outbreaks and the lack of severity of the outbreaks. The Ebola vaccination was not seen as cost effect or worth determining the potential risk of the vaccines for human use. I have read that one vaccine was used when a person was accidentally potentially exposed to Ebola. The person did not get an Ebola infection nor a side effect reaction to the vaccine.

a reply to: feldercarb

Exactly, given the high level of bio-containment needed for research and the infrequency of actual outbreaks, it's very hard to try to develop a vaccine against something like Ebola. It's always risk v. reward.

a reply to: FeistyFemme

Brantly said in a recent speech that he also offered his blood to Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was treated for Ebola in Dallas, but that their blood types didn't match.

link (that was easy to find)

Al?, Jesse? Dat you?
a reply to: FeistyFemme

a reply to: feldercarb

Thank you... you are very knowledgeable about blood, feldercarb! Are you a vampire? (j/k )

So, a question, if you please: Is there any way to 'extract' the antibodies themselves from the blood? Sort of like rabies shots people are given if they have been exposed to an infected animal? (My son was scratched by a feral cat when he was 4 or 5 and the Health Department gave him a series of shots.) They said he could be a donor for more serum for a time, but it was never pursued, perhaps because he was so young. In any case, I do not recall his blood type being an issue in terms of the antibodies he was given.

a reply to: new_here

Getting the antibodies out of the blood is probably not the hard part. It is kinda a chicken or egg situation. First, you need to isolate an antigen on the Ebola virus. Your first step is to have antibodies or portions of antibodies that are set on an array or chip connect to the antigen on the Ebola virus. Note antigens are the molecules that antibodies bind to on the virus or bacteria or some other foreign invader.

Once you have captured the Ebola virus then you would snip the specific antigen away from the rest of the virus. Probably done by some type of restriction enzyme. Then make the antibody that "caught" the antigen release the antigen. Tag the antigen with something like a probe or marker that will allow you to easily separate out the antigen after it has bound to the antibody that was in the blood of a previously infected individual.

Now the hard part. Separate the antigen from the antibody without affecting the functionality of the antibody. If you can do that, you will have 'extracted' the antibody from the blood. Repeating, the hard part is keeping the antibody's functionality not isolating the antibody.

I do not know how the rabies shots work. I would have to look it up to understand the process. Sorry.

Edit:

I looked up rabies treatment. The treatment is to vaccinate the individual with inactive form of the rabies virus. This works because the rabies virus has a long incubation time before becoming infectious. The shots are repeated to keep your own antibodies level high until after rabies virus incubation period has ended. After a while your body would normally stop producing the antibodies because your body would consider that unnecessary and wasteful. If you get a second infection, then your body would go to the next level and be ready to produce antibodies at a moments notice. That is the basic premise of vaccination. You get an initial infection with either an inactivated form, a close relative like cowpokes for chicken pox or you are given only an antigen snippet without the whole virus or bacteria. This will cause your body's initial immune system response. Once you get a real infection your body will then see that as a second infection and respond accordingly.


Link:

Rabies vaccine


Note: Forgot to say that there are multiple antigens on the Ebola virus. You need to find the antigen that the "killing" antibody binds to. Thus when you use the antibody chip or array, you may get multiple antigens to bind. You then have to individually test each captured antigen vs the blood to get the antibodies and you will also need to test which antibody is the most effective antibody. More than one antibody may work.

a reply to: new_here

My husband says since they don't know what the antibodies for Ebola are, they can't filter out the antibodies a person might be carrying against the other blood types. Although he's also no hematologist to know why they can't just use the serum.

a reply to: feldercarb
Thanks for the info on blood feldercarb.Star for ya.

Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but Brantly got blood from an a 14-year-old child who survived Ebola while in his care.

a reply to: FeistyFemme

Blood type likely didn't match. Though I'll admit it didnt seem his treatment was aggressive as others but that is probably because bad hospital and he was already very ill when he got there.

a reply to: feldercarb

Thank you for taking the time to explain! Feel free to ignore my barrage of questions, but concerning this:

The treatment is to vaccinate the individual with inactive form of the rabies virus.

Since Ebola has up to 21-day incubation period, what are your thoughts on the possibility of vaccinating health care workers/family members who are known to have been exposed with an 'inactive' form of the Ebola virus? It has been so effective with rabies... which is TRULY a death sentence once symptoms occur!

a reply to: new_here

It's complicated, but basically, you can't just inject any old inactivated virus into someone and expect it to work as well as the rabies vaccine does. For one thing, not every inactivated virus will provoke an immune response that will work when the person is exposed to the live version.

Not only that but you also have to prove that the virus is inactivated which isn't as easy as it sounds. It has to be inactivated just right because if you make sure it's dead, then the odds are it's beyond recognition by the immune and wouldn't produce workable antibodies. But, if you don't inactivate it enough ... OOPS! The only way to figure out how to inactivate it is to do animal testing which takes time and means potential exposure to people and dead monkeys. Lots of them. And even then, you don't know if the inactivated virus will work to provoke the immune system to make the right antibodies. And then, how do you test THAT? More animal testing.

Eventually, you have to test it in people.

Duncan was likely in the O group. As is the incoming Emory patient. Likely why they are sending her there, may have a better chance to save her, probably because of obtained or will be obtained antibodies from West African surviving patients. To mention that, Dr. Brantly received blood serum the from a young patient treated in Liberia.

As we already know the TX hospital was ill prepared in the first place. They probably can't handle two patients and as the first nurse patient was saying, a room was filled with used medical supplies from Duncan. Probably having no immediate way to deal with the biohazard items in that quantity.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thanks, that explains a lot.

a reply to: new_here

My husband would be better to explain since he basically makes vaccines for a living and understands the process a lot better even though he's quality control and not research and development. He still has to understand the basic process though. I'm sort of paraphrasing what he tells me about it all, and his job is in the veterinary side of things. However, the mechanism for making a vaccine is still the same for animals as it is for people.

If Caucasians and Africans have (for the most part) incompatible blood types, why/how did Dr. Brantley receive a blood transfusion from an Ebola-recovered African girl? Lots of misinformation and disinformation flying..even on ATS, regarding this subject.
cwm

originally posted by: carewemust
If Caucasians and Africans have (for the most part) incompatible blood types, why/how did Dr. Brantley receive a blood transfusion from an Ebola-recovered African girl? Lots of misinformation and disinformation flying..even on ATS, regarding this subject.
cwm

Pretty sure this thread's 'blood specialist' explained it in terms of universal donor blood types and universal recipient blood types. 0 being the donor one... which I believe it was said that Africa has many people with 0, so Brantley may have received from a 'universal donor.' Yet he is NOT one himself.

Which begs the questions... can't they collect blood from all of the survivors in Africa who are universal donors???