Ebola Survivors!!(?)

It's great that some people scrape through Ebola and come out successfully on the other side! In this way, this is a 'good news' thread.

So it wouldn't escape our collective consciousness, I posted something a week ago saying to the effect that IMO- Ebola survivors are the key to a vaccination and/or a cure (obviously I'm not the only one to come up with this brilliant plan).

In looking at these stories, it seems that survivors are young-ish. Maybe in their 30's or younger. This seems to be IMO a contradiction to the theory that the cytokine storm is supposed to be worse for younger people- that this storm event is the actual thing that kills the victims.

story #1 on CNN link Looks like he's in his late 20's or early 30's.

story #2 link

and Brantly, 33

story #3 link

Blood from a 14-year-old boy who survived Ebola...

I'm just wondering about a couple of things concerning survivors(?) (hence the question mark in the title)....

oAre all the survivors young? Are there any survivor stories from Ebola that are of people with advancing years?

oIf a person survives Ebola, does that mean that their immune system is smart or tough enough to survive other different strains of Ebola later on? It's probably different on a case-by-case, and maybe a strain-by-consecutive-strain basis. But I'm wondering if there is a general consensus on this (or not)?

It is highly unlikely to impossible that any disease will kill everyone. There will always be survivors. Even if something is engineered, there will be survivors.

Young people are strongest physically and best able to withstand illness, even an illness that excites their immune system to the point of attacking them as much as the illness in question. However, what causes a cytokine storm is a novel strain of something that your immune system has never seen before.

During the 1918 flu epidemic, the young and healthy with strong immune systems were the ones most likely to die because of cytokine storms. The body had never before encountered this type of flu, and it hyper-reacted in an effort to fight it off often killing the victim. For the very young and very old, the flu was still a very serious illness, but it was simply a very bad flu. They had the normal risks associated with a flu of that severity.

There are possibilities with the young survivors: their immune systems aren't as strong, they managed to outlast anything thrown at them making them very strong individuals, they were possibly exposed previously without anyone being aware giving them an imperfect or partial immunity, the Ebola virus they were infected with is a less lethal strain than others in the epidemic.

And when I say they had a partial or imperfect immunity, I am referring to what happened again in 1918. There was an outbreak of flu prior to the deadly pandemic. It was mild and no one thought it was anything more than regular flu, but those who got that strain later on either were immune to the pandemic strain or only got it moderately badly. Their immune systems did not attack them because they had seen a version of the pandemic virus before and didn't freak out.

**Loony Theory Alert** It is just possible that some of these people have been eating bush meat and might have been exposed to some degree to this virus previously ... maybe enough to give their immune systems an edge. That's probably completely impossible though.

originally posted by: ketsuko
It is highly unlikely to impossible that any disease will kill everyone. There will always be survivors. Even if something is engineered, there will be survivors.

...
[snip]
**Loony Theory Alert** It is just possible that some of these people have been eating bush meat and might have been exposed to some degree to this virus previously ... maybe enough to give their immune systems an edge. That's probably completely impossible though.

Your point is kind of like one aspect of what this thread is trying to address: If an Ebola survivor can build enough antibodies from one strain- to keep them healthy when encountering a different one?

But Nancy Writebol is 59, that's not real young.

If you survive Ebola, are you immune, like chickenpox?

Doctors believe surviving Ebola leaves you immune to future infection. Scientists have found that people who survive Ebola have antibodies in their blood that would provide protection against that strain of the virus in the future, and possibly against other strains as well.

But, as you can imagine, they haven't tested this theory by infecting survivors with the virus again.

emphasis mine

Ebola: Your most pressing questions answered

It seems as though they are unsure.

My thinking is that if you survive one strain, you could still succumb to another strain as you can still get the flu even if you get the flu shot.

This year's flu shot is based on strains from last year's outbreak with no guarantees that this year's strain will be protected against; which is one reason I refuse the flu shot every time it is offered.

a reply to: MarkJS

Yes and no, pretty much all the people who got Spanish Flu had encountered the flu before. The thing is how different the strains are.

Your antibodies and immune system recognize the surfaces of pathogens. Antibodies have to be very specific so that they can lock on to pathogens and render them incapable of locking onto the receptors on the surface of your body's cells. If the immune system doesn't have the specific antibody but has dealt with something similar to the pathogen, it reacts in the standard way. If the immune system has never seen anything like the pathogen, it can go more or less ballistic and give its best/strongest response which can be as dangerous to the body as the pathogen.

It's possible that some of the people who survived were either exposed to a weak strain of the virus or to something that was similar enough to the virus that their immune systems didn't hyper-react. It's also possible that their immune systems weren't or didn't hyper react.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
But Nancy Writebol is 59, that's not real young.

She also had an experimental treatment, and once she was flown home, excellent supportive care. Either one of those could have made a huge difference.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
But Nancy Writebol is 59, that's not real young.

She's the exception. Not because of her age, but because she used ZMapp.

a reply to: ketsuko
But didn't Kent Brantley also?

I'm just questioning the age thing in the OP. I tend to think it is more the care, and in some cases like the people from the use of the experimental meds that help people survive, not the age.

Isn't half the problem with the spread over there the fact that so many of the people, native to the area, are superstitious, and not trusting the methods, including the quarantines in the first place? So they just take off, or, as I believe I read, remove the deceased loved ones?

originally posted by: ketsuko
It is highly unlikely to impossible that any disease will kill everyone. There will always be survivors. Even if something is engineered, there will be survivors.

Well except rabies, I don't think anyone has survived rabies without medical treatment.

Last time I was at uni untreated fatality stood at 100%.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
a reply to: ketsuko
But didn't Kent Brantley also?

I'm just questioning the age thing in the OP. I tend to think it is more the care, and in some cases like the people from the use of the experimental meds that help people survive, not the age.

Isn't half the problem with the spread over there the fact that so many of the people, native to the area, are superstitious, and not trusting the methods, including the quarantines in the first place? So they just take off, or, as I believe I read, remove the deceased loved ones?

Bingo! Culture and conditions are Ebola's biggest allies in this outbreak.

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: ketsuko
It is highly unlikely to impossible that any disease will kill everyone. There will always be survivors. Even if something is engineered, there will be survivors.

Well except rabies, I don't think anyone has survived rabies without medical treatment.

Last time I was at uni untreated fatality stood at 100%.

It would be interesting to see if you could track all wild animal infections with rabies if that stat holds true. Do they all die or do some manage to survive?

Of course, we'll never know.

a reply to: crazyewok

Yeah but wouldn't that be one of those cases that if someone was immune to rabies what would be the likelihood of the medical community finding out? You have to go to the doctor before they know you have something, unless you kill over suddenly.

I am sure there is someone somewhere that has a variation that protects them from rabies. If they got bit and never got sick the medical community wouldn't know about it.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: ketsuko
It is highly unlikely to impossible that any disease will kill everyone. There will always be survivors. Even if something is engineered, there will be survivors.

Well except rabies, I don't think anyone has survived rabies without medical treatment.

Last time I was at uni untreated fatality stood at 100%.

It would be interesting to see if you could track all wild animal infections with rabies if that stat holds true. Do they all die or do some manage to survive?

Of course, we'll never know.

Intresting as yeah we have no idea on those in rural asia or africa.

Only data is from American and EU recordsin resent history.

We can only say so far its 100% mortality.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
a reply to: ketsuko
But didn't Kent Brantley also?

I'm just questioning the age thing in the OP. I tend to think it is more the care, and in some cases like the people from the use of the experimental meds that help people survive, not the age.

Isn't half the problem with the spread over there the fact that so many of the people, native to the area, are superstitious, and not trusting the methods, including the quarantines in the first place? So they just take off, or, as I believe I read, remove the deceased loved ones?

Right. I was intending to start with a level playing field and natural immunity to Ebola (at least one strain of it). The person who 'cheated' so to speak using ZMapp, are the exceptions.

The big problem as you state and as I have understood is that people are superstitious and untrusting of most Westerners. That is why I think that the people who survived Ebola naturally, in that environment, are so unique and should be investigated more closely- as they hold the key it seems to get -all of us- out of harm's way.

a reply to: MarkJS

The cytokine storm info is based on observations of past Zaire Ebola outbreaks. I've been looking for demographics relating to this epidemic, but none to be found yet. ....My question: What age group is most likely to contract Ebola (not just survive it)?

....Also, this epidemic seems to result from at least one new 'strain' - maybe the mutations have indeed had notable effects. Problem is, everyone's too busy to do much record-keeping. And don't forget - kids and young people make better human interest copy, which could explain why those are the cases we hear about. ie., not representative.

The big problem as you state and as I have understood is that people are superstitious and untrusting of most Westerners. That is why I think that the people who survived Ebola naturally, in that environment, are so unique and should be investigated more closely- as they hold the key it seems to get -all of us- out of harm's way.

I agree, but again, since they don't trust us, it will be hard to do.
Which makes me wonder, could that be one of the reasons we are sending troops there? To force some survivors to be studied?

a reply to: soficrow

While not an answer to your demographics question (I'm still looking, but as you know recent research is hard to find and as you point out everyone is busy working on catching up) , it does show that there is a significant difference in how the disease acts in young patients compared to adults:

Our findings suggest that children with EVD may benefit from different treatment regimens than those for adults.
...
In summary, our data suggest that different pathophysiologic mechanisms of disease may be at work in pediatric patients, and children may benefit from different treatment than their adult counterparts

Biomarker Correlates of Survival in Pediatric Patients with Ebola Virus Disease
direct link to pdf

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Great find. ...But again, based on "old" Ebola. Interesting bit here, emphasizing that infections and deaths occur mainly in caregivers:

....Pediatric patients have been underrepresented in EVD studies because total numbers of affected children in any given EVD outbreak..... are usually low because of outbreak dynamics and societal structure. For example, nosocomial EVD infections mostly occur in adults working on hospital wards, and children are not usually caregivers for EVD patients.