This week has seen a heartening triumph of medical science: Ebola is now curable, doctors say. The announcement is also a timely one. The outbreak in the war-ravaged territories of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which began over a year ago, has defied the sustained efforts to halt it. Last month, with the death toll above 1,600 people, the World Health Organization declared it an emergency of international concern. The even deadlier West African epidemic of 2014 killed more than 11,000 people before it was extinguished, having prompted fear around the world. The high death rate and agonising nature of the deaths all add to the virus’s terrors.
So the news that two really effective treatments have been discovered and tested, and that they are being rolled out, could hardly be more welcome. International institutions and Congolese researchers and medics have performed a remarkable, almost impossible feat in trialling these drugs in epidemic conditions.
