These treatments, based on monoclonal antibodies, were approved at the end of 2020 by the American Medicines Agency.
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For the first time, the WHO issues treatment recommendations for Ebola. The World Health Organization recommended, Friday, August 19, the administration, to all people who suffer from this hemorrhagic fever, of two treatments which considerably reduce the mortality linked to this disease.
In its guidelines (link in English)the organization makes a “strong recommendation for treatment with mAb114 or REGN-EB3” in patients with Ebola virus disease. She makes the same recommendation for “Newborns with unconfirmed Ebola virus disease, seven days of age or younger, born to mothers with confirmed EVD”.
mAb114 is a monoclonal antibody marketed under the Ebanga brand and REGN-EB3 is a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies. These two treatments were approved at the end of 2020 by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) and are already used to treat Ebola patients.
Studies have shown that both treatments significantly reduce Ebola-related mortality, assured the head of the clinical team at WHO, Janet Diaz, during a press briefing in Geneva (Switzerland). These treatments can save between 230 and 400 lives per 1,000 people infected. In its guidelines, the WHO recommends, on the other hand, not to administer the ZMapp treatment, based on monoclonal antibodies, and the antiviral remdesivir.
The Ebola virus causes an often fatal disease. The outbreak that raged between 2013 and 2016 in West Africa was the largest since the discovery of the virus in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), killing more than 11,300 people. In addition to treatments, vaccines have been developed in recent years and are used to interrupt the chains of transmission.