Monkeys infected with Ebola can be cured with a pill, according to a new study out Friday that could pave the way for more practical, affordable treatments in humans. First identified in 1976 and thought to have crossed over from bats, Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids , causing severe bleeding and organ failure. Because outbreaks primarily affect sub-Saharan Africa, pharmaceutical companies have lacked financial incentives to develop treatments, and the sporadic nature of outbreaks has made clinical trials difficult.
A vaccine was only widely approved in 2019, and while two intravenous antibody treatments improve outcomes, they require costly cold storage and are difficult to administer in some of the world's poorest regions. "We're really trying to come up with something that was more practical, easier to use, that could be used to help prevent, control, and contain outbreaks," Thomas Geisbert, a virologist at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who led the new study published in Science Advances , told AFP. For their experiment, Geisbert and colleagues tested the antiviral Obeldesivir, the oral form of intravenous Remdesivir, originally developed for COVID-19.
Obeldesivir is a "polymerase inhibitor," meaning it blocks an enzyme crucial for viral replication. The team infected rhesus and cynomolgus macaques with a high dose of the Makona variant of the Ebola virus. A day after exposure, ten monkeys then receive.
