SD & BO- I was being facetious wrt to the 'rub dirt in it" comment, but only somewhat.
The survivors of EBOLA probably had malaria co-infection.
We are, however, supposed to have a variety of bugs on board (commensals and symbiots) to have normal resistance to infections and be generally healthy. That's no news to either of you I am sure.
However, what is new is the notion of modulating the initial (innate) immune response to fight on-going infections or prevent infection from progressing to disease.
If it were me and I had a team mate that I suspected to be infected with EBOLA, I would treat him with multiple doses of a vaccine over 3-5 days- don't really care what vaccine either. BCG vaccine or Freund's Complete Adjuvant would be particularly useful or even Coley's Toxin. Just trying to induce an innate immune response (mimic the biological response of survivors) and hopefully eradicate virus in the process. In fact just about any foreign protein would be better than nothing.
So yeah, rub some dirt in it.
