The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg is shown in this 2009 file photo. Photo: John Woods/The Canadian Press/Files TORONTO — The experimental Ebola drug given to two American aid workers is based on years of research done at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
The drug is a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies, disease fighting proteins that target a specific part of an invading virus.
Sources have told The Canadian Press that two of the three monoclonal antibodies in the drug were designed at the Winnipeg laboratory.
The work was done under the leadership of Dr. Gary Kobinger who heads the special pathogens research program at the national lab.
The Public Health Agency of Canada declined to comment Monday on the use of the drug or Canada’s role in its development.
The third monoclonal antibody in the product was developed by a U.S. government laboratory.
Rights to the Canadian-designed monoclonal antibodies have been acquired by a U.S. company called Leaf Biopharmaceutical of San Diego, California.
The company is partnered with Mapp Biopharmaceutical, also of San Diego, which makes the experimental therapy, called ZMapp.
Mapp Biopharma provided the drug for the treatment of Dr. Kent Brantly, who works with the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, and Nancy Writebol, an American missionary who works with the organization Service in Mission or SIM.
The two were infected at an Ebola treatment centre in Liberia, one of four countries battling this outbreak. The other three are Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
The drug had never been tested in humans before it was given to Brantly and Writebol, but had shown favourable results when given to non-human primates infected with Ebola Zaire, the strain of the virus responsible for this outbreak.
The World Health Organization said Monday that as of Aug. 1, there have been 1,603 cases since the outbreak was first detected in early March, and 887 deaths.
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