A recent study published on Friday reveals that monkeys infected with Ebola can be treated successfully with a pill, potentially leading to more accessible and cost-effective treatments for humans. Ebola, first identified in 1976 and believed to have originated from bats, is a lethal viral disease transmitted through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, resulting in severe hemorrhaging and organ failure.
Outbreaks predominantly occur in sub-Saharan Africa, which has deterred pharmaceutical companies from investing in treatment development due to a lack of financial incentives, compounded by the irregular occurrence of outbreaks that complicates clinical trials. A vaccine received widespread approval only in 2019, and although two intravenous antibody therapies have shown to enhance patient outcomes, they necessitate expensive cold storage and pose challenges for administration in some of the world’s most impoverished areas.
Thomas Geisbert, a virologist at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the lead author of the study published in Science Advances, stated, “We’re really trying to come up with something that was more practical, easier to use, that could be used to help prevent, control, and contain outbreaks.”
In their research, Geisbert and his team evaluated the antiviral Obeldesivir, an oral version of the intravenous drug Remdesivir, which was initially developed for Covid-19. Obeldesivir functions as a “polymerase inhibitor,” effectively blocking an enzyme essential for viral replication.
The researchers infected rhesus and cynomolgus macaques with a high dose of the Makona variant of the Ebola virus. One day post-exposure, ten monkeys were administered an Obeldesivir pill daily for ten days, while three control monkeys received no treatment and subsequently died. The results showed that Obeldesivir protected 80 percent of the cynomolgus macaques and 100 percent of the rhesus macaques, which share a closer biological relationship with humans. The drug not only eliminated the virus from the blood of the treated monkeys but also stimulated an immune response, enabling them to produce antibodies while preventing organ damage.