Thursday, January 1, 2015

The Business Benefits Of Ebola Virus Breakouts

By Alfred Obi


The Ebola pathogen breakout in Western Africa dominated much of the reports in 2014. The highly contagious pathogen spreads quickly and kills over 50% of the people that become infected, resulting in major panics across multiple continents. While the vast majority of the dead are in Africa, health workers did bring the pathogen home to other countries and continents.

For all of the bad news and focus upon doomsday scenarios on what the pathogen could do, there are basically dome commercial benefits of Ebola virus outbreaks. The economic benefits mostly breakdown between non-profit or govt groups and for-profit biotechnology companies.

Central authority or help associations like the Red Cross or the CDC tend to see increases in funding in events like these. The business benefits to them are direct and help out those on the ground suffering or helping and containing an outbreak.

This containment keeps commercial interruption when funding is adequate to turn the tide of an onset.

The long term commercial benefits of Ebola virus outbreaks are biotech firms working on vaccines or medicines that might improve survival rates of those infected by Ebola. One such firm is Tekmira, that has been given blessings by the FDA to expand testing on in its experimental Ebola drug for bigger scale controlled trials.

Sarepta Therapeutics, Nanoviricides and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals are other biotech outfits that could see increased business in the future if their own Ebola drugs and medications turn out to be of worth.

While the 2014 Ebola outbreak is the first to have captured world attention as much as it probably did, it was hardly the 1st onset. Others have occurred, and more will happen in the future. Any business that has an Ebola drug or vaccine on the market that proves effective can be certain to see an increase in business in times to come.




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