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This is still unclear. A worker in the UK accidentally infected with what later was recognized as Ebola Sudan was treated with 500ml of plasma from a person convalescent from Ebola Zaire infection. Viremia quickly disappeared, and the patient recovered. It is unclear if the patient would have recovered (or recovered as quickly) without the plasma, so it is possible that the plasma might have only had some small effect. Subsequent work with monkeys (mostly unpublished) suggested that convalescent plasma had little or no benefit, at least in cross-strain application. Indeed, Col. Nancy Jaax at USAMRIID reported recently that the opposite appears to be true: monkeys that survived Ebola Reston were challenged with Ebola Zaire and died faster than monkeys infected with the Zaire strain alone. She stated that this suggests that Ebola serum therapy needs to be Ebola strain-specific.
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