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.
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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