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New Ebola drugs to make disease ‘preventable and treatable’

Ebola Vaccine
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There’s been a possible major breakthrough in the fight against Ebola after trials of new drugs suggested they could make the disease ‘preventable and treatable’.

The trial vaccines were found to have significantly reduced the death rate of patients treated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The development comes exactly one year since the epidemic was declared in DRC.

The two Ebola drugs REGN eb3 and MaB114 have proven effective in clinical trials here, with a 90% survival rate in all patients that received them.

Researchers say they will now make the treatments available to anyone infected with the virus. This week, two people cured of Ebola using the experimental drugs were released from a treatment centre in Goma, which is in the eastern part of the DRC.

They were reunited with their families. Earlier efforts to limit the spread of the disease have been hampered by mistrust among affected communities but majorly also by violence against health workers and treatment facilities.

The outbreak in the eastern DRC is the second-worst ever; more than 2,800 people have been infected.  Nearly 1900 have died. -Reporting by Leon Ssenyange

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