infectious diseases
Marburg and Ebola Virus Infections
Treatment of Marburg and Ebola Virus Infections
Supportive care Antiviral therapy Supportive careincludes the following: Maintenance of blood volume and electrolyte balance Replacement of depleted coagulation factors Minimization of invasive procedures Treatment of symptoms, including use of analgesics Two monoclonal antibody treatments are currently available to treat Ebola virus infection caused by the Zaire ebolavirus. These are REGN-EB3 and mAb114. REGN-EB3 was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2020 and is a combination of three monoclonal antibodies (atoltivimab/maftivimab/odesivimab). The second medication, mAb114, is a single monoclonal antibody (ansuvimab) that was approved in December 2020. Both of these treatments were proven effective during the 2018 to 2020 Ebola outbreak in the DRC demonstrating cure rates of about 90% in patients with low viral loads (which suggests treatment was begun within the first few days after infection). This is compared to a death rate that is thought to be over 70% in untreated and unvaccinated patients and is a significant improvement over previous experimental medications for Ebola (ZMapp,remdesivir). Until the two monoclonal antibodies or others are shown to neutralize Marburg virus, there is still no effective treatment for that virus infection. 