Achievements in Ebola Therapy in Sierra Leone

Falling death toll of Ebola patients in Sierra Leone

25/12/1975

For about a year, the Ebola epidemic raged in West Africa. To date, the health authorities in the affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have failed to bring the epidemic under control. In that „New England Journal of Medicine“ After a year of combating the disease, a comprehensive summary was drawn up, which offers some hope in its beginnings. According to the journal, a special treatment in a treatment center in Sierra Leone has significantly reduced the death toll of Ebola patients.

In the Ebola treatment center at Hastings Police College near Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, the average lethality of the Ebola patients admitted was only 31 percent, well below the comparable figures from other facilities „New England Journal of Medicine“. In addition, the death rates in the observation period have fallen significantly, from initially just under 48 percent in the first 151 patients admitted, over 31.7 percent in the next 126 patients to 23.4 percent in the last treated patients, reports the journal, citing a corresponding Case study at the treatment center.

One third of Ebola patients died
In the study, Kathryn H. Jacobsen of the George Mason University in Fairfax, USA, together with scientists from Sierra Leone, evaluated data from a total of 581 Ebola patients who had either died or were cured. According to the study author, 183 of the 581 Ebola patients died altogether. 38 died on the way to the clinic or immediately after arriving at the treatment center and 145 died within a few (usually four to four) days after admission to hospital. Nearly a third of those infected, however, survived the disease, which is almost twice as likely to survive as in other reviewed facilities. Scientists attribute this to the special therapy patients received at the treatment center.

Combined treatment with antibiotics, analgesics and co
At the time of their admission, patients showed, according to the „New England Journal of Medicine“ mostly Ebola symptoms, like „Fatigue, loss of appetite, fever, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches, joint pain and headache.“ Patients were treated intravenously with one gram of ceftriaxone (antibiotic) every 12 hours, 500 mg of metronidazole (a special antibiotic that also works with protozoa) given intravenously every eight hours, 500 milliliters of Ringer's solution and 500 milliliters of isotonic Saline is administered intravenously every 8 or 12 hours to compensate for electrolyte and fluid loss. In addition, received „all patients also received ten milligrams of vitamin K and 160 milligrams of artemether intramuscularly plus a 20 milligram zinc sulfate tablet daily, a 400 milligram ibuprofen tablet every 12 hours, and if needed, 10 milligrams of metoclopramide intravenously“, so the message of „New England Journal of Medicine“.

Hope for further success in Ebola treatment
If the patients survived the first three days in the treatment center, their chances of a successful recovery were quite good. The reason why significantly more Ebola patients survive here than in other treatment centers remains unclear. „We are unable to assess every single component of the treatments as we apply a package of measures“, the doctors report. Thus, the efficacy of this treatment approach must be validated by clinical research at other Ebola treatment facilities. However, the results certainly give cause for cautious optimism, especially since only just under a quarter of the patients have died in the last 304 evaluated treatments. However, an end to the epidemic is still not in sight. The World Health Organization (WHO) is still receiving daily reports of new infections. Around 19,500 Ebola infections and 7,573 deaths were reported to the WHO by 19 December, affecting primarily the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Fp)