BANFIELD: Health workers in West Africa are in a desperate race to contain the Ebola virus. We've got a visual that can help you understand just how bad this outbreak is getting. We compiled the latest figures on Ebola deaths and the cases in West Africa from the World Health Organization over the last four months, and you can see the frequency of deaths and infections due to the virus, well, they've just simply skyrocketed since June. So far Ebola has claimed the lives of more than 900 people and more than seventeen-hundred have been infected with it. In the meantime, Nigeria, the fourth African nation to find Ebola within its borders, is now reporting five new cases and one more death, this as two infected Americans, who were infected in Liberia, are receiving treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. CNN's Stephanie Elam reports on how the top-secret drug that may be saving their lives is actually made.</s>ERICA OLLMANN SAPHIRE, PROFESSOR, SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: It's profound. Everything we work for.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Erica Ollmann Saphire is part of the team of 25 labs in seven countries that created the serum taken by both American Ebola patients, and so far the cocktail seems to be working Until now, the drug wasn't known to the public. It wasn't even supposed to be tested on humans until 2015. Did you have any reservations before the outbreak happened about trying it on people?</s>SAPHIRE: I thought it would work. I would take it myself. But I know what it is. And I spent my life studying Ebola virus.</s>ELAM: Saphire says the antibodies work by binding to the virus or the infected cell.</s>SAPHIRE: So this is a model that we made of the structure of the structure of this protein that's in the surface of the virus, green and white. Yellow is the antibody, so this is the molecule the virus uses to attach to a human cell and drive itself in.
How Top-Secret Ebola Drug Is Made