Two Ebola treatments increase survival

Health workers are a step closer to curing the Ebola virus after two drug trials in the hard-hit Democratic Republic of Congo improved patients’ survival rates by as much as 90 percent.

Does this mean Ebola is cured? In November 2018, the World Health Organization launched four trials in response to Congo’s Ebola epidemic. The two drugs tested target the virus with antibodies that neutralize its effect on human cells. One drug reduced the death rate, which is usually about 50 percent, to 6 percent, while patients in the trial who received the other had a death rate of only 11 percent. “From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable,” said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director-general of the Congo Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale. “These advances will help save thousands of lives.” The current outbreak has claimed about 1,800 lives so far.

Dig deeper: Read my report on other factors that have fueled the Ebola epidemic in Congo.