Ebola drugs trial raises prospect of cure for deadly disease
More than 90% of patients in Democratic Republic of Congo survived when treated early
Two anti-Ebola drugs have proved so effective they will be rolled out to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising the prospect of a potential cure for the deadly disease.
In a trial conducted since November, more than 90 per cent of patients survived when they were treated early enough with one of the two drugs, scientists said. Under normal circumstances, some 70 per cent of people infected with the virus die.
In the latest outbreak in Congo, the second worst in history, some 1,800 people are known to have died out of about 2,800 infected.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped run the trial, described the results as “very good news” in the fight against Ebola. Scientists said the breakthrough could significantly reduce the risks of further outbreaks on the scale of the one in Congo or that in west Africa in 2014, in which more than 11,000 people died.
The two drugs, called REGN-EB3 and mAb114, attack the Ebola virus with antibodies, preventing the virus from entering cells. They build on a treatment developed by Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, who has helped lead the fight against Ebola for four decades.
Dr Muyembe, 77, was recently put in charge of the Congo’s response against the Ebola outbreak, which has taken place in the east of the vast central African country where lawlessness and lack of trust in authorities has hampered the response.
Scientists said that having an effective medicine could massively improve public trust, since patients would not simply be asked to come to medical centres to die. Instead, if the infection was caught early enough, they now stood an excellent chance of survival.