THE successful treatment of British aid workers who were feared to have Ebola has proven for the first time that anti-viral drugs can beat the deadly disease.
A report, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, describes the treatment of eight British healthcare workers who were evacuated to the Royal Free Hospital in London after possible accidental exposure to the virus in Sierra Leone earlier this year.
Four of the healthcare workers were considered to have been at "significant risk" of exposure to Ebola from needlestick injuries and were given post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) with the antiviral drug favipiravir.
None went on to develop Ebola and all eight workers remained healthy throughout the 42 day follow-up, with no signs of disease or detectable levels of virus in their blood.
Study lead author Dr Michael Jacobs, of the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, said: "It is possible that none of these health-care workers were infected with Ebola virus.
"Therefore, we cannot know for sure whether or not post-exposure prophylaxis prevented the onset of Ebola-virus disease.
"However, two of the workers had needlestick injuries contaminated with fresh blood from patients with Ebola virus disease putting them at very high risk of transmission."
He added that the work "justifies further studies" of the treatment and may even help to "prevent a major route of spread during an epidemic".
The risk of Ebola infection for healthcare workers in west Africa is high.
By August 5 this year, 880 out of 27,862 cases of Ebola were reported in healthcare workers.
But for doctors and nurses caring for Ebola patients there are no guidelines to quantify exposure risk, and until now, any evidence that PEP may be beneficial in humans.
In January, Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey became the first person in Britain to be diagnosed with the disease soon after she returned from working in Sierra Leone.
The 39-year-old, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, was initially treated in Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital before spending several weeks in isolation receiving treatment at the Royal Free Hospital before making a full recovery.
Following her brush with death, Miss Cafferkey said she was "happy to be alive."
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