A potential treatment has been developed by a team of Australian and American scientists for the severe and sometimes deadly Hendra virus.

An article by CSIRO, “Breakthrough in fight against Hendra virus” says that when the scientific team administers human monoclonal antibodies into ferrets after being exposed to Nipah virus, animals are protected from the disease.

Ferrets are the subject of the study of Nipah virus because it closely resembles humans and the Hendra virus.

The PLOS Pathogens journal contains the paper which summarizes the efforts of this team. The paper is entitled “A Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibody Protects against Lethal Disease in a New Ferret Model of Acute Nipah Virus Infection.”

Nipah virus was given to ferrets during the study. One group did not receive the human monoclonal antibodies m102.4 (the control group), while a second group did receive it.

Every ferret died in the control group without the m102.4, whereas the ferrets receiving the dosage survived their infection of Nipah virus.

“This study is the first successful post-exposure passive antibody therapy for Nipah virus using a human monoclonal antibody”, concludes the paper.