Experimental Ebola vaccine can be used in latest outbreak, WHO says

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August 7, 2018 10:28 PM

Dr. Peter Salama, the World Health Organization’s deputy director-general for emergencies, said the latest outbreak, in North Kivu province, involves the Zaire strain of the virus.

The effort to contain the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo received a boost Tuesday with news that an experimental vaccine can be used to combat the deadly virus.

Dr. Peter Salama, the World Health Organization’s deputy director-general for emergencies, said the latest outbreak, in North Kivu province, involves the Zaire strain of the virus.

That is the same strain as in the previous outbreak, 1,500 miles away in Équateur province, which was officially declared over July 24. The experimental vaccine helped to contain that outbreak.

There had been some concern that the vaccine might not work if the virus in North Kivu was a different strain.

But Salama said in a Twitter posting that laboratory testing showed otherwise and that health workers can start administering the vaccine as early as Wednesday.

The vaccine, tested in 2016 during the waning days of the Ebola epidemic that ravaged West Africa, was declared 100 percent effective.

Salama’s announcement signaled some optimism about defeating the North Kivu outbreak, even though it has presented special challenges because the area is essentially a war zone, mired in armed conflicts and home to 1 million displaced people.

The North Kivu outbreak was confirmed July 28, a week after the Équateur outbreak ended.

Forty-three cases have been reported in North Kivu, including 34 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s latest update. More than 900 people have been screened for possible contact with Ebola carriers.

Thirty World Health Organization staff members are in North Kivu, and Salama and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director-general, will travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.

Ebola, a highly infectious disease that causes hemorrhaging, fever, bloody vomiting and diarrhea, has five subtypes. The Zaire strain is the most common and deadliest form.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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