Ebola virus breakthrough may help find potential cures

Scientists studying the lethal ebola virus say they have found how it blocks and disables the body’s ability to battle infections in a discovery that should help the search for potential cures and vaccines.

In the largest and deadliest outbreak of the disease yet recorded, ebola has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa since March.

A group of scientists in the United States found that ebola carries a protein called VP24 that interferes with a molecule called interferon, which is vital to the immune response.