The world may have found a cure for the Ebola outbreak as a doctor working in Sierra Leone who was infected with the deadly disease was treated using an experimental drug, according to Healthcare Global.
The drug, named FX06, was administered to the patient by doctors in Germany's Frankfurt University Hospital.
The unnamed male doctor from Uganda developed symptoms of the disease on September 28. Five days later, he was brought to Germany for medical assistance, Medical News Today reported.
Dr. Timo Wolf of the Frankfurt University Hospital led a medical team and subjected the patient to a 73-hour treatment which consisted of the use of antibiotics. For three days, Wolf and his team injected the patient with the FX06 drug every 12 hours.
Following the duration of the treatment, the patient was placed under a 30-day observation process to confirm if the drug worked. After about a month, Wolf analyzed the patient's blood and found no traces of the Ebola virus.
Due to the positive result of the treatment, Wolf proposed through a medical journal report that the FX06 drug should be used as a potential cure for the deadly disease.
"Even though the patient was critically ill, we were able to support him long enough for his body to start antibody production and for the virus to be cleared by his body's defenses," he stated in the report. "Fx06 could potentially be a valuable agent in contribution to supportive therapy."
Wolf also pushed for the immediate clinical testing of the drug to confirm its effectiveness in combating the Ebola virus.
"We suggest FX06 as a potentially valuable therapeutic candidate for vascular leak syndrome in Ebola virus disease," he said.
"In view of the urgency for action in light of the current epidemic, where validated therapies are desperately needed, the efficacy of FX06 should soon be assessed in clinical trials or at least by standardized collection of data from patients with Ebola virus disease who received it in a compassionate use setting," Wolf added.
