Africa

Two of four experimental Ebola drugs being tested in Congo seem to be saving lives, international health authorities announced. The preliminary findings prompted an early halt to a major study on the drugs and a decision to prioritise their use in the African country, where a yearlong outbreak has killed more than 1800 people. The early results mark “some very good news,” said Dr Anthony Fauci of the US National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the study. With these drugs, “we may be able to improve the survival of people with Ebola”. The two drugs — one developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the other by NIH researchers — are antibodies that work by blocking the virus. While research shows there is an effective albeit experimental vaccine against Ebola — one now being used in Congo — no studies have signalled which of several potential treatments were best to try once people became sick. Next, researchers will do further study to nail down how well those two compounds work. In the study, significantly fewer people died among those given the Regeneron drug or the NIH’s When patients sought care early — before too much virus was in their bloodstream — mortality was just 6 per cent with the Regeneron drug and 11 per cent with the NIH compound.