• Question: did you find the cure to ebola yet?

    Asked by anon-186307 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 10 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-186551.
    • Photo: Raquel Medialdea Carrera

      Raquel Medialdea Carrera answered on 10 Nov 2018:

      That’s a great question!
      Currently, we haven’t found the cure to Ebola Virus yet. However, there are a few potential treatments that are showing to be very promising!! At the moment, they are testing those treatments with patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo (where there is an epidemic of Ebola at the moment!).

      It is actually very difficult to find an effective and safe cure to Ebola Virus that will kill the virus without hurting the patient. But, hopefully, it will be ready very soon! 🙂

    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      We don’t have a cure yet but we do have a vaccine now after the last outbreak! In high risk areas we can distribute this vaccine to help stop people getting the disease in the first place. Scientists are working on things called antivirals which help cure the disease in patients but this work isn’t finished yet but there is lots of progress on it!

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      The others have covered this!
      There is no cure for Ebola that is widely available, but a few have been tested in West Africa and now in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is one that seems to work quite well, but you grow it in plants so you can’t grow much of it at once! But you can reduce how many people die by about a third (about 70% to about 25%) by giving them good treatment with “supportive therapy” which is giving people water and salts to rehydrate them, and making sure they don’t get sick with other things while they are vulnerable.
      There is however a really good vaccine, and it could be a turning point in how we deal with Ebola outbreaks!

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Not me personally! I research sexually transmitted infections, and how people’s behaviour affects their control, not Ebola. Other researchers have developed a vaccine though! However, we are still uncertain of its efficacy – which means we still don’t know exactly how long the vaccine protects people for, and how many people the vaccine will work for.

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