{"id":1910,"date":"2014-09-18T08:46:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T08:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2014-09-18T08:46:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T08:46:22","slug":"ebola-patients-buying-survivors-blood-from-black-market-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1910","title":{"rendered":"Ebola patients buying survivors\u2019 blood from black market -WHO"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"nrelate_flyout_placeholder\">\n<p>As hospitals in nations hardest hit by Ebola struggle to keep up, desperate patients are turning to the black market to buy blood from survivors of the virus, the World Health Organization warned.<\/p>\n<p>The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed at least 2,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone \u2014 the countries most affected by the virus.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands more are infected and new cases have emerged in Nigeria and Senegal.<\/p>\n<p>Blood from survivors, referred to as convalescent serum, is said to have antibodies that can fight the deadly virus. Though unproven, it has provided some promise in fighting a disease with no approved drug to treat it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStudies suggest blood transfusions from survivors might prevent or treat Ebola virus infection in others, but the results of the studies are still difficult to interpret,\u201d the WHO said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not known whether antibodies in the plasma of survivors are sufficient to treat or prevent the disease. More research is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Convalescent serum has been used to treat patients, including American aid worker Rick Sacra, who is hospitalized in Omaha, Nebraska. He got blood from Kent Brantly, a fellow American who survived Ebola. Both got infected when they were helping patients in Liberia.<\/p>\n<p>But unlike their situation, patients in affected nations are getting blood through improper channels. The illicit trade can lead to the spread of other infections, including HIV and other blood-related ailments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to work very closely with the affected countries to stem out black market trading of convalescent serum for two reasons,\u201d Margaret Chan, WHO\u2019s director-general, said this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause it is in the interest of individuals not to just get convalescent serum without \u2026 going through the proper standard and the proper testing because it is important that there may be other infectious vectors that we need to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As hospitals in nations hardest hit by Ebola struggle to keep up, desperate patients are turning to the black market to buy blood from survivors of the virus, the World Health Organization warned. The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed at least 2,400 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone \u2014 the countries most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-uO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}