WHO says Ebola treatment "saving lives" as Congo trials find drugs boost survival

Record ID: 1427445

  • Title: WHO says Ebola treatment "saving lives" as Congo trials find drugs boost survival
  • Date: 13th August 2019
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (FILE) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 27th August 2019 15:14
  • Keywords: Ebola outbreak Democratic Republic of Congo treatment Geneva United Nations disease health
  • Location: BENI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
  • City: BENI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA004AS1XTFR
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The World Health Organization (WHO) praised on Tuesday (August 13) "life-saving" Ebola treatments after two experimental drugs out of four showed survival rates of as much as 90 percent in a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
    The two experimental drugs, an antibody cocktail called REGN-EB3 developed by Regeneron and a monoclonal antibody called mAb114, bring scientists a step closer to being able to cure the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever.
    The drugs will now be offered in 14 treatment centres to all patients infected with the viral disease in Congo's persisting outbreak, the second largest in history that is now entering its second year.
    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.
    29% of the patients on REGN-EB3 and 34% on mAb114 died in the study. In comparison, 49% of the patients on ZMapp and 53% on Remdesivir died.
    The WHO however warned that the best survival rates happened when patients received treatments in the first three days of contracting the virus, with death rates ranging from 6 to 11 percent, making it crucial that people come for a cure as early as possible.
    The two 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 treatments will now be dropped.
    Of the patients who were brought into treatment centres with low levels of virus detected in their blood, 94 percent of those who got REGN-EB3 and 89 percent of those on mAb114 survived.
    In comparison, two-thirds of the patients who got Remdesivir and nearly three-quarters on ZMapp survived.
    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 WHO.
    (Production: Marina Depetris, Ardee Napolitano)
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