Finally Ebola has cure: Two New Ebola Treatments to be given to all DRC Ebola Patients
Ebola. It is the most dreaded disease. It kills fast. Within hours at times. To make it worse, it spreads far and wide, quickly; that between 2014 and 2016, more than 28,000 individuals were infected by the virus, killing no less than 11,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Nigeria was not spared either. Currently, an outbreak in DRC has already seen some 2831 new infections 1892 of whom have succumbed to the virus, and that’s why when Scientists working to find a cure for Ebola announced that they have managed to create two Ebola Treatments, Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe celebrated the breakthrough as the most significant achievement of his life.
“Ebola has no vaccine so the discovery of the two new treatments is the biggest news of the year”, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research as he spoke to BBC Focus on Africa.
The two new ebola treatments are based on monoclonal antibodies that block the Ebola virus; the first being REGN-EB3 made by U.S. firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc while the second being mAB114 made by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. mAB114 was derived from a single antibody from the blood of a person that survived Ebola in the DRC in 1995. The two ebola drugs are administered through perfusion, a process where fluid is passed through the circulatory system or lymphatic system to an organ or a tissue. When a patient is treated by any of the drugs, he or she recovers within one hour. “From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable,” said Prof Jean-Jacques Muyembe as he celebrated the breakthrough. “These advances will help save thousands of lives”, he reiterated.
“The more we learn about these two treatments, and how they can complement the public health response, including contact tracing and vaccination, the closer we can get to turning Ebola from a terrifying disease to one that is preventable and treatable. We won’t ever get rid of Ebola but we should be able to stop these outbreaks from turning into major national and regional epidemics,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome and co-chair of the WHO Ebola therapeutics group.
The two ebola treatments are available immediately for those infected with Ebola, but it is important to note that a patient has only 90% chance of getting cured, but only if he or she is diagnosed at very early stages of the disease – that is before the symptoms have become too pronounced.