Ebola now curable after trials of drugs in DRC, say scientists

Congo results show good survival rates for patients treated quickly with antibodies

Sarah Boseley Health editor
Mon 12 Aug 2019 17.24 BST Last modified on Tue 13 Aug 2019 01.05 BST

Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate.

ZMapp, used during the massive Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, has been dropped along with Remdesivir after two monoclonal antibodies, which block the virus, had substantially more effect, said the World Health Organization and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was a co-sponsor of the trial.

The trial in the DRC, which started in November, has now been stopped. All Ebola treatment units will now use the two monoclonal antibody drugs.

“From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable,” said Prof Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the director general of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale in DRC, which has overseen the trial. “These advances will help save thousands of lives.”

One of the biggest obstacles in fighting the year-long DRC outbreak, the second biggest ever and now with 2,800 cases, has been the reluctance of those who fall sick to seek treatment.

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