Ebola Treatment Trial Enrolls First Patients in Congo Six Weeks After WHO Declares Emergency

The Partners treatment trial opened in Ituri province with the first patients enrolled six weeks after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 17 May. Participants are randomly assigned to receive remdesivir, the monoclonal antibody MBP134, a combination of both, or standard supportive care.

Remdesivir is given as a 10-day course of intravenous therapy while MBP134 requires a single infusion.

Both drugs showed efficacy against the Bundibugyo strain in animal models, according to Prof Laurens Liesenborghs of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. The trial design permits additional experimental treatments to be added later. As of 9 July the outbreak had produced 1,792 confirmed cases and 625 deaths.

The Bundibugyo strain kills roughly one in three infected people. Enough doses of both drugs have been donated for 1,200 participants, with remdesivir supplied by Gilead Sciences and MBP134 by the U.S. government.

The trial is sponsored by the WHO and funded by the Wellcome Trust, FCDO and UKRI. Patients of any age, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, are eligible. Between 700 and 1,000 participants are required for a result, with one site already open and more planned.

Response efforts face difficulties. Contact tracing covers about 75 percent of known contacts. Some frontline workers halted activities this week over unpaid wages, and the closure of Bunia airport has disrupted supplies including banknotes.

A separate prevention trial testing obeldesivir in contacts of confirmed cases is scheduled to begin this week but requires roughly $18 million, of which $6 million has been committed.