Is Ebola Immunity Real? How it Could Help the World

The Ebola pandemic that is going on in West Africa continues to worry the world even as it has a devastating effect on local populations. Both a vaccine and potential treatment options are still far from sight, according to health officials, but now a team of experts is suggesting there is hope yet. Some very lucky individuals may be naturally immune to Ebola infection, and finding them could open doors not even considered.

Ebola has infected nearly 9,000 people in seven countries, including the United States, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

"Our data shows that cases are doubling every four weeks. The disease is still widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and there is persistent transmission of the virus," Isabelle Nuttall, the WHO Director for Global Capacities, Alert and Response, said at a recent news conference in Geneva.

She stressed that this is not because the infection is becoming more contagious, but because it is already at difficult-to-contain numbers in West African regions. Health workers, the most at-risk, continue to be infected daily.

Even two health workers who treated the first US Ebola patient were recently confirmed with the virus, but the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that they have the brief outbreak contained.

CDC director Tom Freiden recently stated that the key is to break the link in the chain of transmission.

"That's how we have stopped every Ebola outbreak in history except the one currently in West Africa," he said.

He essentially means that to fight the virus, we have to make sure that the virus can't find a new host. However, to do that in a country already saturated in infected patients, like in Sierra Leone, immunity must become common, and that means a vaccine is necessary.

Interestingly, researchers have found that human immunity to Ebola could also be natural. (Scroll to read on...)

In a letter recently published in The Lancet  medical journal, experts from the University of Texas at Austin suggest that the normally fatal virus has lived in the bodies of people who have never fallen ill or infected others.

"Ultimately, knowing whether a large segment of the population in the afflicted regions are immune to Ebola could save lives," researcher Steve Bellan explained in a recent release. "If we can reliably identify who they are, they could become people who help with disease-control tasks, and that would prevent exposing others who aren't immune. We might not have to wait until we have a vaccine to use immune individuals to reduce the spread of disease."

For instance, these naturally immune could serve as caretakers for isolated patients, avoiding repeats of the tragedy that is occurring in the United States.

It is important to note that it remains unclear if immunity to Ebola is even possible, or if the virus is simply adversely affecting some people in a unique and not as obvious way.

Similarly, it was long thought that rabies - one of the deadliest infections known to man - was instant death for humans. However, rare cases have been found where some people boast a natural resistance to the disease - not necessarily entirely immune to it, but also not dying or passing it on to others.

The researchers note that there is evidence of similar "asymptomatic Ebola infections" in the aftermath of past Ebola outbreaks.

"Understanding the prevalence and immunological effects of these silent Ebola infections is critical to making reliable epidemic projections and improving control efforts," added researcher Ancel Meyers. "We believe that we can and should investigate this phenomenon as soon as possible."