Reports published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine have shown that an experimental drug being manufactured by Tekmira pharmaceuticals was very effective in halting the disease process of the Marburg virus in monkeys.
Marburg virus is an RNA virus very similar to Ebola that causes a hemorrhagic illness that is almost always fatal. Thomas W. Geisbert and colleagues have shown that a drug using RNA interference was able to save all monkeys infected with Marburg virus while none of the monkeys who did not receive the drug survived.
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