United States: Doctors have created a basic medicine that patients can swallow easily to fight against one of the lethal diseases that causes numerous fatalities.
More about the news
The newest experimental drug, delivered once daily, indicates promising results for decreasing Ebola-linked mortality rates based on research findings presented to nonhuman primate subjects this month.
The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) managed the research activities at the leading role for publishing findings in Science Advances journal on Friday. The research found that obeldesivir functions as an oral antiviral agent that prevents 100% of monkey deaths exposed to high-dose Zaire ebolavirus, according to gizmodo.com.
The researchers state that obeldesivir demonstrates great promise as an anti-Ebola medication along with other similar infections that result in deadly bleeding problems.
About Ebola
Various viral strains, which are relatives of each other, produce Ebola infections. Ebola strains that arise from Zaire ebolavirus infection stand as the most fatal version because they claim up to 90 percent of untreated patients.
The onset of Ebola symptoms begins with fever and body discomfort, yet the virus speeds up to result in organ failure and massive bleeding from the body that doctors call hemorrhagic fever.
The start of Ebola outbreaks stems from human contact with infected animals since this disease belongs to the zoonotic category.
The disease has the potential to move between individuals when they come into direct contact with blood and semen, along with other bodily fluids.
New research in monkeys confirms that the oral antiviral drug obeldesivir can successfully protect nonhuman primates from death caused by Ebola virus infection. https://t.co/xRzXltm89B pic.twitter.com/5uyUFDHJsL
— Science Advances (@ScienceAdvances) March 14, 2025
Ebola carries the risk of causing extensive outbreaks even though its quick symptom development alongside fatal consequences tends to restrict the wider transmission of the infection, gizmodo.com reported.
A Zaire ebolavirus outbreak in West Africa caused 30,000 infections that resulted in the deaths of more than 11,000 people from 2014 to 2016.
Antibody-based treatments for Ebola have storage and administration challenges because they must maintain cold temperatures while being delivered by intravenous methods, which reduces their practical application.
Furthermore, the UTMB experts also noted that obeldesivir, which is an oral variety of the antiviral remdesivir, was originally developed to treat COVID-19; hence, it can be represented as an important step forward in treating Ebola.