A Drug Developed to Fight Ebola Could Hold Hope for Coronavirus Treatment

Last year, when I visited the town of Beni, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), people did not shake hands. Bottles of disinfectant and buckets of chlorinated water were at the entrance of every business. Misinformation spread across social networks and on news-sites, and treatment centers in the northeastern province of North Kivu were being attacked by armed militias. At the time, Beni was one of the centers of a devastating Ebola outbreak, the second most deadly in world history. According to the World Health Organization, almost 3,500 people were sickened by the virus, and more than 2,000 died, a case fatality rate of 66%. “It’s a really difficult situation,” Sister Xeverine, a Catholic nun who ran a UNICEF-supported creche for children whose parents had been diagnosed with the disease, told me when I saw her in Beni. “Medical workers need to convince the community that they need to be treated.” She continued, “on the other side, there are people who always influence people to refuse treatment.” The Ebola outbreak in North Kivu seems to have come to an end just as the coronavirus panic struck Europe and the U.S.—the WHO says there has not been a new case of Ebola since Feb. 17 this year. Despite the marked differences in how the viruses operate (Ebola is far more deadly than coronavirus, and it is only transmitted through infected bodily fluids, while COVID-19 is believed to be transmitted through airborne drople...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news