Washington (AFP)

Scientists can cherish the hope of a cure for the Ebola virus, two drugs that have increased the survival rate of patients in a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo, US health authorities announced Monday. -financed the study.

The current phase of this study, initiated in November in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), will be stopped so that all future patients receive these treatments that have shown positive results, added the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"Preliminary results from the 499 participants showed that individuals receiving (treatments) REGN-EB3 or mAb114 have a greater chance of survival compared to participants in the other two branches" of the study, they said.

Patients who received the other two treatments, Zmapp and Remdesivir, will be able to choose to switch to the two drugs that have proven effective.

According to Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust UK Foundation, this move will "save lives, no doubt".

"The more we learn about these two treatments, and the way they can complement the health response of the authorities, including immunization and finding out who has been in contact (with sick patients), the closer we get to the possibility of Ebola from a terrifying disease to a preventable and curable disease, "he said.

The US authorities added that the final analysis of the data collected would be carried out at the end of September or the beginning of October, and that the complete results would then be published.

The NIH, the DRC health authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) congratulated "the team of incredible people who worked in particularly difficult conditions to complete this study".

"It is thanks to this type of rigorous research, quickly put in place, that it is possible to identify quickly and with certainty the best treatments, and to integrate them into the emergency response to Ebola," they said. highlighted.

More than 1,800 people have died from the Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for a year.

The virus is transmitted to humans by certain wild animals, then between humans through direct and close contact, via the bodily fluids of a sick person.

His "case fatality rate" is very high: he kills on average about half of the people he reaches, according to WHO.

© 2019 AFP