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MEDICINA

Dos tratamientos contra el ébola reducen a la mitad las muertes en una prueba en el brote en la RDC

By Duncan Mil

August 16, 2019 - Pruebas clínicas realizadas en medio de una epidemia de ébola en la República Democrática del Congo (RDC) han identificados dos nuevas drogas que pueden reducir radicalmente la mortalidad por la enfermedad.

Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever that kills up to 90% of those it infects. The latest outbreak, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has so far killed nearly 1,900 people.

Now, two anti-Ebola drugs tested in the DRC have proved effective if administered when the first signs of infection appear. The treatments in question employ monoclonal antibodies -- protein molecules made by the immune system in response to infection.

The antibodies work by locking onto the Ebola virus to block it from attaching to receptors on the surface of human host cells. Monoclonal antibodies also latch onto to infected human cells, disabling them or marking them for destruction by other parts of the immune system.

The most successful treatment, going by the laboratory name REGN-EB3, is a cocktail of three such antibodies, made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. biotechnology firm. The other, mAb114, is a single antibody developed by America’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases using antibodies isolated from the blood of a survivor of a 1995 outbreak in DRC.

Preliminary results from 499 patients suggest that prompt use of REGN-EB3 cuts mortality rates to 29%. For mAb114, the mortality rate fell to 34%.

The experimental drugs will now be used to treat patients infected with the viral disease in an ongoing outbreak in the DRC.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 16/08/2019; STORY: Duncan Mil; PICTURES: NIAID Research Facility, Fort Detrick, Maryland
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