Ebola has a 90% fatality rate among infected humans. But scientists are hopeful that a successful treatment recently tested on monkeys can be used to develop a human counterpart:
Link | Image (unrelated): CDC | Previously: A Vaccine for the Ebola Virus?
Seven of the nine monkeys in the study received the same amount of the drug over a six-day period. Three of the seven monkeys got the drug every other day, while four received it daily. One monkey in each group served as a control animal and didn't receive the drug.
Analysis of the treated monkeys revealed that, ten days after having been infected with Ebola, the first group of monkeys had very low levels of the virus in their blood. Researchers were unable to detect the virus at all in the group that had received daily doses.
"The siRNAs inhibited the replication of the virus and completely protected the monkeys against death from hemorrhagic fever," Geisbert noted. "This has never been done before."
Link | Image (unrelated): CDC | Previously: A Vaccine for the Ebola Virus?
Once you've cured something, how is a pharmaceutical companies make money? They'll invest money only in things that guarantee a long-term profit, not to help rid world of AIDs, Hepatitis, and various other viruses and diseases that are hugely profitable. That's why there's hundreds of different ageing (both anti-ageing cream, and keeping old people alive even though it would more human to allow them dignity of death) treatments that completely unsuccesful - because there is a constant market for these 'treatments'.