Dr Kent Brantly and his wife, Amber, in an undated photo provided by Samaritan's Purse

This undated handout photo of Nancy Writebol courtesy of SIM

WASHINGTON: While Big Pharma in the US is typically pilloried by rest of the world for not working on medicines that treat diseases in poor countries because there is no money in it, a little known American drug company is reported to have produced a serum that may be working on the two US aid workers infected by the Ebola virus in Africa .The top secret experimental vials were secretly flown to Liberia last week to be administered to Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol , both of whom were working for the charity Samaritan’s Purse treating Ebola patients when they were infected by the deadly virus that causes almost certain death. Brantly showed immediate improvement in his condition, reports said, even as he was flown back to the US for further treatment.In fact, television footage showed him walking unassisted to the hospital in Atlanta, accompanied by medical personnel in hazmat suits. Writebol’s condition is not known; she is to be flown out from Liberia on Monday night to be brought to Atlanta. They are both being treated by a medical team that includes Dr Jay Varkey, a physician of Indian-origin who is an infectious disease specialist at the Emory Medical Hospital in Atlanta.Some reports said Dr Brantly, who had isolated himself in Liberia as soon as he found he had contracted the virus and had given himself up for dead, was able to shower by himself within a day of taking the secret serum.The drug, called ZMapp, was reportedly sent by a representative from the National Institutes of Health to Samaritan’s Purse.Evidently, the medication is still at an experimental stage and has not been cleared for use, but such was the imminent danger to Dr Brantly’s life that standard protocols were circumvented in an effort to save him.It is not clear if Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the San Diego-based biotechnology firm, approved the application of its drug, but the recipients had to sign consent forms. They were told that the treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys.Company documents, including a release by the US Army Medical Research Institute of infectious disease, say results surrounding Zmapp show promise for developing therapies against the Ebola virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever with human case fatality rates as high as 90%.According to first author James Pettitt of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the research team previously demonstrated that the treatment — known as MB-003 — protected 100% of non-human primates (monkeys) when given one hour after Ebola exposure. Two-thirds of the animals were protected when treated 48 hours after exposure. In the study, 43% of infected non-human primates recovered after receiving the treatment intravenously 104 to 120 hours after infection.If the treatment is confirmed to be working on the US aid workers, attention will quickly shift to how quickly it can be brought to help the poor countries that are threatened by the Ebola virus.