- Title: 'Hope and optimism': New Ebola drugs boost survival rates by 90%
- Date: 13th August 2019
- Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (AUGUST 13, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, SAYING: "Before this we didn't have any effective treatment for Ebola virus disease. Now we have two therapies that have been shown in a very sound clinical trial, scientifically sound, to be able to diminish significantly the mortality associated with Ebola." WIDE OF FAUCI (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, SAYING: "They both have the same fundamental principle. It's an antibody that's made outside of the body and then infused intravenously into the body. It binds to the Ebola virus and it neutralizes it and prevents it from spreading from cell to cell."
- Embargoed: 27th August 2019 21:40
- Keywords: Ebola drugs treatment success Anthony Fauci
- Location: BENI AND GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO/BWERA, UGANDA/ WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- City: BENI AND GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO/BWERA, UGANDA/ WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA004AS1YPTZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Scientists are a step closer to being able to cure the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever after two experimental drugs showed survival rates of as much as 90% in a clinical trial in Congo.
Two experimental drugs - an antibody cocktail called REGN-EB3 developed by Regeneron and a monoclonal antibody called mAb114 - will now be offered to all patients infected with the viral disease in an ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The drugs showed "clearly better" results, according to U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in a trial of four potential treatments being conducted during the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, now entering its second year in DRC.
The drugs improved survival rates from the disease more than two other treatments being tested - ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences - and those products will be now dropped, said Anthony Fauci, one of the researchers co-leading the trial.
"It gives us some hope and optimism because prior to this, with the mortality of between 65 and 70 percent, it was a dreadful disease. If you can bring it down to a much lower level that gives people a lot of hope and that gives them the confidence to go in to get care when they do get sick." said Fauci.
Ebola has been spreading in eastern Congo since August 2018 in an outbreak that has now killed at least 1,800 people. Efforts to control it have been hampered by militia violence and some local resistance to outside help.
A vast Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2013 to 2016 became the world's largest ever when it spread through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and killed more than 11,300 people.
The Congo treatment trial, which began in November last year, is being carried out by an international research group coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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