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 Health authorities last week started administering the
U.S.-developed mAb114 treatment to Ebola patients, the first time
such a treatment had been used against an active outbreak.
The health ministry said in a daily bulletin late on Tuesday that
the 10 patients who received mAb114 since Aug. 11 have experienced a
"positive evolution", but the outbreak has continued to grow.
The four additional treatments approved by Congo's ethics committee
are Remdesivir, made by Israel's Gilead Sciences; ZMapp, an
intravenous treatment made by San Diego's Mapp Pharmaceutical;
Japanese drug Favipiravir; and one referred to as Regn3450 – 3471 –
3479.
Remdesivir was administered to its first patient in the town of Beni
on Tuesday, who is doing well, the ministry said in its bulletin.
Six new cases and four new deaths have been confirmed from the
haemmorhagic fever, which causes vomiting and severe diarrhea, the
ministry said.
That brings the total number of deaths to 59 and confirmed cases to
75 since last month.
Congo, whose heavily forested interior makes its a natural home for
Ebola, is at the forefront of a global campaign to combat the virus,
which killed more than 11,000 people when it swept through West
Africa from 2013-2016.
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The Central African country has experienced ten Ebola outbreaks
since the virus was discovered in northern Congo in 1976 - more than
twice as many as any other country - and 33 people died in a
flare-up in the northwest that ended last month.
In addition, a vaccine manufactured by Merck, which proved effective
against the earlier outbreak in northwestern Congo, has been
administered to 1,693 health workers and contacts of Ebola patients.
Insecurity in Congo's eastern borderlands with Uganda has continued
to complicate the response, with some contacts of Ebola patients
located in so-called "red-zones", which are off limits to emergency
responders due to militia activity.
Instead, local health workers in those areas are monitoring the
contacts and no Ebola cases have yet been confirmed there.
(Reporting By Amedee Mwarabu and Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Aaron
Ross; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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