More than 16,000 doses of Ebola vaccine arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Sarmad
Sixteen thousand doses of the Ervebo Ebola vaccine arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Friday, as the country faces its deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, according to the Agence France-Presse.
The seventeenth Ebola outbreak in the DRC was announced on May 15, but it is believed the disease began spreading weeks earlier.
The epidemic has affected areas in the north and east of the country, where state presence is weak, health infrastructure is virtually non-existent, and numerous armed groups have been active for decades.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday that the DRC would receive 70,000 doses of the German-made Ervebo vaccine, the only Ebola vaccine with official approval.
Although Ervebo, manufactured by Merck, is effective against the Zaire ebolavirus strain, its efficacy against the Bundibugyo strain currently circulating in the country remains unconfirmed.
While WHO experts remain uncertain whether the vaccine provides protection against the latter strain, preliminary data collected from animal trials suggest it may offer some protection.
DRC Health Minister Samuel Rogier Kamba confirmed that the vaccine “has been used on previous occasions, including extensively between 2018 and 2020.”
The Congolese minister made these remarks while present at Ndjili Airport, which received 16,250 doses of the vaccine on Friday.
Of the 70,000 vaccine doses allocated to the DRC, 20,000 will be used in clinical trials, and 50,000 will be reserved for frontline health workers, according to the WHO’s announcement on Thursday.
According to the latest government report, the DRC has recorded 2,516 deaths among 5,290 confirmed cases.
UN Ebola response coordinator Julian Haines warned on Friday that the outbreak is “accelerating.”
This month, WHO vaccine experts recommended conducting large-scale human trials of the Ervebo vaccine to determine whether it provides protection against the Bundibugyo strain.
Vaccines targeting this strain are still undergoing clinical trials. US company Moderna is developing a vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, while the UK’s University of Oxford is working on another candidate.
Additionally, Singapore-based Hilleman Laboratories announced it would accelerate the development of the rVSV-Bundibugyo vaccine, which the WHO considers to have the highest chance of success, paving the way for human clinical trials.
Despite modern vaccines and treatments, the virus remains deadly, having claimed more than 15,000 lives in Africa over the past 50 years.
