Hey, Check This Out: Ebola Cure Found

Ebola is now curable! It's been almost five years since the Ebola outbreak in Africa during February of 2014. November of 2018, four treatments were given out randomly to patients at four different treatment centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Three of the four treatments that were given were drugs that use monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases. The fourth treatment is remadesivir, an antiviral drug. One of the drugs, ZMapp, is considered the common drug used to treat Ebola. ZMapp was used during the outbreak in West Africa in February of 2014. Although it was used a lot during the beginning of the outbreak, scientists and medical personnel wanted to see if there was another drug that could outperform ZMapp. The death rate for patients who don’t go for help is up to 75%, however, for the ones who took ZMapp, the death rate dropped to 45%.  A company called Regeneron Pharmaceuticals had a huge impact and produced a drug that dropped death rates down to 29%. The most noticeable results were received from patients who went in for treatment very soon after coming down with Ebola. Death rates have dropped with the use of the four treatments in patients that go in quickly for treatment; 24% with ZMapp, 33% with Ramdev Sivir, 11% with mAb114, 6% with Regneron’s drug. The cure, ZMapp, was created using scientific research and experiments on mice. The scientists injected mice with Ebola and then collected data using the antibodies that the mice produced to fight against the disease. Success is very clear in the battle against Ebola, but with success comes tragedy. Not enough people that are infected are being treated in a timely manner. People are still being wary of treatment centers and so they are straying away from them, and because of this they are not starting treatment soon enough to benefit from the  medication. Although there is a cure, and it has been working well, there is still a process in which scientists and medical staff have to share this knowledge with the people in Africa. 
 

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