EU announces research results to tackle early stages of Ebola

Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, has welcomed the announcement by researchers working on the EU-funded REACTION project that the antiviral drug favipiravir may be an effective treatment against the early stages of Ebola.

He said: “If these results are confirmed by the on-going clinical trial, it will be the first ever treatment to be deployed against this deadly disease during the current outbreak. These results show the success of the European Commission’s quick reaction to the Ebola outbreak to support urgent research on several potential treatments and vaccines against Ebola with funding from our Horizon 2020 research programme.”

Preliminary data from the JIKI clinical trial, which is testing the efficacy of favipiravir in reducing mortality associated with Ebola, have shown encouraging signs of efficacy in individuals arriving at treatment centres with a high or moderate level of viral replication who have not yet developed overly severe visceral lesions.

Yves Levy, the chairman and CEO of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), which is co-ordinating the project, added: “The results of this non-comparative trial have to be confirmed using a larger number of patients. However, they open up other therapeutic opportunities in drug combinations, in particular for the treatment of patients suffering from more advanced stages of this disease. They also clearly show that research plays an essential role in tackling such epidemics.”