Wired AS MPOX CONTINUES to spread in Central Africa, a promising antiviral drug to treat the infection has failed to improve patients’ symptoms in a trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak.
In the trial, the drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, did not alleviate the characteristic blisterlike rash seen in people with mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. In an unusual step, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which sponsored the study, announced the initial findings earlier this month prior to the full results being peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal.
Lori Dodd, branch chief of NIAID’s clinical trials research and statistics branch, tells WIRED that the agency shared the initial results “due to the urgent need for scientific evidence on the use of tecovirimat for the treatment of mpox.” That urgency, she says, was reinforced by the World Health Organization designating the mpox outbreak in Central Africa as a global health emergency on August 14. It’s the second such declaration in two years.