Hopes raised for Ebola treatment
Most monkeys given dual therapy survive infection with lethal virus
By Nathan Seppa
A new treatment has protected monkeys exposed to live Ebola virus, one of the world’s most fearsome pathogens. The dual therapy being tested for the first time, a combination of three antibodies and the antiviral drug interferon alpha, rescued nine of 12 animals even after they showed symptoms of disease.
“This is a harbinger of the approach to come,” saysDaniel Bausch, an infectious disease physician at Tulane University in New Orleans who wasn’t involved with the research. Scientists will probably go with a cocktail of drugs against Ebola in future testing, he says. “But it’s too early to say precisely what the cocktail should be.”