Brussels, 24/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - The preliminary results from a clinical trial carried out in Guinea into an anti-viral medicine, favipiravir, for treating the Ebola disease, are encouraging. The medicine tested helped to reduce mortality among certain patients in early stages of the disease. This announcement was made on Monday 23 February by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), which is coordinating this EU-financed research project. The European Commission explained that this announcement is even more important given that this is the first sufficiently tangible progress achieved that provides “evidence that a treatment is effective against Ebola virus disease in humans”. The Commissioner for Research, Carlos Moedas, was delighted with the encouraging results from a project (REACTION) that was financed by the EU research and innovation framework programme ('Horizon 2020') to the tune of €2.5 million. He explained that “If these results are confirmed by the ongoing clinical trial, it will be the first-ever treatment to be deployed against this deadly disease during the current outbreak”.
The clinical trial in Guinea was conducted on people displaying a relatively moderate level of Ebola infection. 80 individuals were tested, 14 of whom were children (aged under 14). The use of favipiravir proved effective in the treatment of adults and adolescents by reducing mortality rates from 30% to 15%. Nonetheless, this anti-viral drug was not effective for infected people at an advanced stage of the disease (the death rates in this sample were more than 90%). Research is therefore still needed to confirm these results in a higher number of patients. It is already known, however, that the door is also open for “therapeutic possibilities, with combinations with other medicines, particularly for treating patients suffering from more advanced stages of the disease”, explained Yves Lévy, the president director-general of Inserm. (Jan Kordys)