It’s one of the most alarming viral conditions that affect our species in the modern day, and given the ambiguous symptoms and high mortality rate, it’s easy to see an Ebola diagnosis as a death sentence.

The Ebola Virus, usually contracted after contact with the blood or bodily fluids of an animal or another person who has the condition, is largely found in Sub-Saharan atmosphere. However, cases across Europe and even in the US since the virus was first identified in 1976 have caused widespread panic.

And that’s because the symptoms – which include bleeding and diarrhea, muscle pain, headaches and body aches, nausea and vomiting – aren’t so different from other conditions, leading to sufferers often not realizing they have the virus until it’s too late.

By which time, there’s a good chance they’ll have infected others too.

With little more than bedrest and care available in the early years of our understanding of the virus, with specialist drugs developed only in the last decade, it’s no wonder that Ebola has been so feared for so long.

Though helpful, the antibody drugs (delivered in hospital via IV) and the precautionary vaccine programmes that have been approved in Europe and the US in recent years are only one step toward solving the problem.

However, thanks to a recent development from medical researchers at Belgium’s Médecins Sans Frontières, a new and far more convenient treatment might soon be on the cards. And with their 10-day course of pills comes hope that this virus – thought to have originated in porcupines and fruit bats – might be treatable and even eradicated in the near future.

And thanks to their lab testing – the results of which were recently published in the journal Science Advances – in which infected monkeys were cured of the virus after treatment, the drug (obeldesivir) is one step closer to approval.

Why obeldesivir? Well, according to the researchers it is superior to current treatments in several ways.

Firstly, it is cheaper and easier to manufacture, meaning that it can be administered even if the patient’s diagnosis is only suspected, not yet confirmed.

This kind of proactive action is sure to save plenty of lives. It is also easy to store and administer, with tablets not requiring refrigeration or an IV, meaning that even in the remotest parts of the world, the drug can be delivered where it is most required to stop outbreaks in their tracks.

And the results are very promising. When obeldesivir was administered to the monkeys, it got to work quickly on prohibiting the replication of viral enzymes that are crucial to the development and spread of Ebola.

After the 10-day course of treatment, between 80 and 100 per cent of the monkeys were saved (depending on their species). Given that Ebola currently has a 90% fatality rate, this is a gamechanger.

Though there is a lot of work still to do across the world, particularly in less developed areas where the virus is rife, the team’s work takes us a step closer to an Ebola-free world.

And in boosting the monkeys’ immunity to the virus too, obeldesivir could be the answer to the world’s prayers.

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