|
 The Health Ministry said vaccinations would start at the weekend,
the first time the vaccine would come into use since it was
developed two years ago.
The vaccine, developed by Merck and sent from Europe by the World
Health Organization, is still not licensed but proved effective
during limited trials in West Africa in the biggest ever outbreak of
Ebola, which killed 11,300 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone from 2014-2016.
Health officials hope they can use it to contain the latest outbreak
in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo.
Peter Salama, WHO's deputy director-general for emergency
preparedness and response, said the current number of cases stood at
42, with 23 deaths attributed to the outbreak.
"Our current estimate is we need to vaccinate around 8,000 people,
so we are sending 8,000 doses in two lots," he told Reuters in
Geneva.
"Over the next few days we will be reassessing the projected numbers
of cases that we might have and then if we need to bring in more
vaccine we will do so in a very short notice.”
Health workers have recorded confirmed, probable and suspected cases
of Ebola in three health zones of Congo's Equateur province, and
have identified 432 people who may have had contact with the
disease.
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the supplies sent to Congo
included more than 300 body bags for safe burials in affected
communities. The vaccine will be reserved for people suspected of
coming into contact with the disease, as well as health workers.
"In our experience, for each confirmed case of Ebola there are about
100-150 contacts and contacts of contacts eligible for vaccination,"
Jasarevic said. "So it means this first shipment would be probably
enough for around 25-26 rings - each around one confirmed case."
[to top of second column] |
The vaccine is complicated to use, requiring storage at a
temperature between -60 and -80 degrees Celsius.
"It is extremely difficult to do that as you can imagine in a
country with very poor infrastructures," Salama said.
"The other issue is, we are now tracing more than 4,000 contacts of
patients and they have spread out all over the region of northwest
Congo, so they have to be followed up and the only way to reach them
is motorcycles.”
The outbreak was first spotted in the Bikoro zone, which has 31 of
the cases and 274 contacts. There have also been eight cases and 115
contacts in Iboko health zone.
The WHO is worried about the disease reaching the city of Mbandaka
with a population of about 1 million people, which would make the
outbreak far harder to tackle. Two brothers in Mbandaka who recently
stayed in Bikoro for funerals are probable cases, with samples
awaiting laboratory confirmation.
The WHO report said 1,500 sets of personal protective equipment and
an emergency sanitary kit sufficient for 10,000 people for three
months were being put in place.
(Reporting by Amedee Mwarabu and Fiston Mahamba in Kinshasa, and by
Tom Miles and Cecile Mantovani in Geneva; Editing by Peter Graff,
Sofia Christensen, Edward McAllister and Richard Balmforth)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
