A Sierra Leone woman who lost her husband and son to Ebola is thanking Canadian researchers after she received an experimental drug that she believes helped save her life.

But one expert says that more lives could have been saved if drug production had ramped up sooner, and he thinks governments have a responsibility to make sure that happens next time.

Junietta Macaulay, a funeral director, was one of just seven patients who received the antibodies-based treatment ZMAb during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

The only reason Macaulay received the dose was because a doctor in the same hospital had been sent the treatment, but died before it arrived.

That doctor was among 11,325 people who were killed by the hemorrhagic fever during the two-year outbreak that ended in January. There were 28,657 cases were reported, according to the World Health Organization.
ZMAb, along with the more famous ZMApp that treated American Dr. Kent Brantly and nurse Nancy Writebol, were developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Macaulay was in Toronto visiting family and attending a conference and went in person to thank the drug company Defyrus, which licensed ZMAb for production. She will also go to Winnipeg to thank the researchers at the national laboratory.

“Science has its own rewards but when you see someone that has benefitted from science, it puts such a personal touch on it,” said Defyrus CEO Jeffrey Turner after their meeting.
Jeremey Carver, CEO of the International Consortium on Anti-Virals, points out that such drugs could have had a much bigger impact if more dosages had reached Africa sooner.

“In the past, we relied on commercial producer to drop everything they are doing and try to help out,” he said. “That just doesn't happen fast enough.”

Carver is pushing WHO to fund a rapid pandemic response team with dedicated manufacturing sites on multiple continents, which could stockpile vaccines and drugs and quickly shift production as needed.

“It is really a question of political will and accessing the funds to make this happen,” he said.

With a report from CTV Medical Correspondent Avis Favro and Producer Elizabeth St. Philip