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Combat against deadly diseases

Hemopurifier by Aethlon Medical aims to eliminate diseases such as Ebola and HIV

Infectious diseases are disorders caused by organisations such as bacteria, virus, fungi or parasites. Many organisations live in or on our bodies. They can be harmful or harmless, but under certain conditions, some organisms may cause diseases.

Some infectious diseases can be passed person to person; some are transmitted from insects or animals. And other are acquired by ingesting contaminated food or water or by being exposed to organisms in the environment. Signs and symptoms vary depending on the organism causing the infection, but often include fever and fatigue. Mild infections may respond to rest and home remedies while some life-threatening infections may require severe hospitalization.
Aethlon Medical recently created an innovative medical device called Hemopurifier to combat against life-threatening diseases such as Ebola and HIV. James A. Joyce the Chairman and CEO of Aethlon Medical explains to MediWorld ME the broad-spectrum capabilities of Hemopurifier and how it battles Ebola and HIV.

Single-use, disposable Hemopurifier

Emerging pathogens pose a significant threat to mankind. Of the hundreds of viral pathogens known to be infectious to man, only a few are addressed with proven antiviral drug or vaccine therapies. Beyond the looming threat of bioterrorism, a proliferation of international travel, urban crowding and global warming is expected to accelerate the emergence of future pandemics.

James A. Joyce notes, “At present, no country is prepared to address the breadth of viral pathogens that could emerge naturally through mother-nature or be released as an agent of bioterrorism by man. In fact, only a small fraction of viruses that are already known are addressed with an antiviral drug. Infectious disease experts believe that a viral outbreak is the most likely single event that could kill 10 million or more people.”
The Hemopurifier is a single-use disposable cartridge that Aethlon designed for use within the established infrastructure of dialysis machines and other blood circulatory instruments already located in hospitals and clinical worldwide.

“The Aethlon Hemopurifier® is a first-in-class medical device designed to rapidly eliminate infectious viruses from the entire circulatory system. The Hemopurifier is being advanced through the FDA in the United States and has been proven to capture a broad-spectrum of life-threatening viruses that are not addressed with antiviral drug therapies, including naturally occurring pandemic threats and agents of bioterrorism. Hemopurifier is the first and only line of defense and life-threatening viruses that are not addressed with antiviral drug or vaccine therapies”.

Combatting viruses

The Hemopurifier addresses a wide range of viruses as it captures infectious viruses by a common structure that they cloak themselves with to evade the surveillance of the immune system.

“As a result, we have an opportunity to address different strains, species and families of viruses. In addition to having success in treating ebola during the recent outbreak, we have validated the capture of 16 high-threat viruses, of which most are not addressed with a traditional drug therapy.”

To date, Hemopurifier therapy has been administered to virally infected individuals for periods of four to six and one-half hours. Unless patient is extremely ill, they are able to read, listen or watch TV during which treatment is being administered and do so in a relaxed environment.

Broad-spectrum capabilities

According to experts, there is no cure for HIV, but there are medications that can dramatically slow the progression of the disease. But HIV continues to decimate population in Africa, Haiti and parts of Asia. HIV continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 35 million lives so far. In 2016, 1 million people died from HIV-related caused globally, according to WHO.

“Our research team has created an method that allows us to quantity the number of viruses that are captured in the Hemopurifier during treatment and no longer circulating in the patient. This works for all RNA viruses. In some cases, we have captured billions of viruses within our device during single 4-6 hour treatments.

Ebola is another rare but deadly virus that causes fever, body aches and diarrhoea and sometimes bleeding inside and outside the body. As the virus spreads, it damages the immune system and organs, ultimately causing levels of blood-clotting cells to drop. This leads to severe uncontrollable bleeding. It spreads through contact with skin or bodily fluids of an infected animal like monkey, chimp or fruit bat. However, according to experts again, there is no cure for Ebola up until now. WHO states that the average Ebola case fatality rate is around 50% case fatality rates have varied from 25 per cent to 90 per cent in past outbreaks. People diagnosed with Ebola receive supportive care and treatment for complications.

“During the Ebola outbreak, we captured 253 Ebola viruses during the treatment of a comatose doctor with multiple organ failure. While treating, the patient’s viral load reduced from approximately 400,000 copies/ml to approximately 1000 copies/ml. The patient made a full recovery and was able to return home to his wife and children”.

Validating viruses

In health compromised individuals, latent viruses that normally don’t pose a threat, can become reactivated and overwhelm the immune system.

“We have validated three of the most comment latent viruses, which include Cytomegliovirus, Epstein-Barr and Herpes Simplex Virus. Most of the viruses validated by Aethlon medical are not curable with traditional drug or vaccine therapies.

“We measure the capture of such viruses during treatment as a means to verify that our device achieved the goal of its label indication, which is the single-use removal of viral pathogens from blood. Instead of claiming to cure, we deploy our Hemopurifier to augment the patient’s immune system or to improve the benefit or other therapies should they exist.”

Future goals

At this point, Aethlon’s main focus will be directed toward establishing large-scale production capabilities of Hemopurifier.

“As a company, we are also interested in the possibility of eliminating tumor-derived exosomes from the circulatory system of cancer patients. This would represent a significant unmet need in healthcare are tumor-derived suppress the immune system of cancer patients and play a role in the spread of metastasis, which contributes to upwards of 90 per cent of cancer deaths.

“I can conclude that we are interested providing our Hemopurifier to countries that wish to protect their citizens from emerging bio-terror and pandemic threats that are not treatable with traditional drug therapies,” concludes James.

Aethlon Medical

Aethlon Medical combats infectious disease and cancer with Immunotherapeutic Technologies. To augment the body’s natural immune defenses, the Aethlon Hemopurifier® eliminates life-threatening disease targets that are often shielded from the immune system and not well addressed by traditional drug therapies. The technology captures circulating viruses, bacterial toxins and cancer promoting exosomes through affinity attachment to a unique structure that cloaks these targets from immune detection. At present, the Hemopurifier® is being advanced under an FDA approved clinical study.