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Comment by bellerocky | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Brantly has now immunity or resistance and can help fight the disease without worry of reinfection. How does that work? Can you be reinfected with ebola if you survive?

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I don't remember which newspaper I read this in (I believe New York Times?) but apparently there are ~5 known varieties of Ebola, and recovering from an infection only grants immunity to that one variety.

So, in general, no, but if this outbreak involves only one strain they might be immune to that particular one.

According to the blood samples on 20 patients throughout West Africa, the current outbreak is a new strain. It is closely related to Ebola Zaire, but appears to have involved a different trans-species transmission event than the Zaire strain.

Survivors are believed to be more resistant but I think immunity is unlikely. Surely if he returns to risky areas he'll take the same precautions that anyone else would, it's not worth the risk and I'm sure those precautions are meant to protect from a number of tropical illnesses that are a risk in addition to Ebola.

According to the mashable article [1] linked in the comments one component of the serum had some extended protection in a series of tests:

"A November 2013 Defyrus study showed that ZMAb offered extended protection against the virus. Scientists reinfected surviving monkeys 10 weeks after their first infection, and 100% survived. What's more, four out of the six monkeys reinfected 13 weeks after initial exposure survived."

[1] http://mashable.com/2014/08/17/ebola-serum-zmapp/

That's actually an interesting question- were you to theoretically be able to initial effect of Ebola infection, would the immune system eventually be able to create effective antibodies for it? I don't know if it would work the same way if you're introducing antibodies for treatment.

Ebola is a viral infection, so in theory, he should be immune or at least, strongly resistant to reinfection. According to wikipedia, there are four variant viruses that are thought to be disease causing in humans. I suspect that he would be much less resistant to the other three.

Right. But since the current outbreak is limited to a single strain, he should have an acquired immunity. However, he's probably more useful contributing as a research subject state-side, than a treatment specialist in West Africa, to say nothing of the physical and psychological health issues he's most likely still facing.

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