What is the treatment for Ebola?

Currently there is no approved antiviral therapy yet. An investigational drug called GS-5734 developed by Gilead Science showed great promise in preclinical study[1] . It’s a nucleotide analogue, which can inhibit the RNA replication of Ebola virus. Nucleos(t)ide analogues represent the most common class of antiviral drug, and have been successfully used to treat HIV, HBV, HCV and herpes.

GS-5734 is a prodrug, which needs to be metabolized into the active form by cellular enzymes. The active nucleoside triphosphate (NTP) can be picked up by the viral polymerase and incorporated into the nascent viral RNA like natural NTP. However, once incorporated, it prevents further incorporation of NTP, thereby causing premature termination of RNA replication.

Given that most viruses (including all RNA viruses and retroviruses) encode their own polymerase, nucleos(t)ide analogues have the potential to treat virtually all viral infections. Unfortunately, only a few viruses have antiviral drug developed, while the mojority of viral diseases still lack effective treatments.