The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) has begun vaccination to combat the Ebola outbreak with the fastest pace recorded in history. The Minister of Health, Roger Kamba, announced this initiative on Thursday during the launch of the campaign in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province, one of the six regions affected by Ebola in the eastern part of the country.
The Ervebo vaccine was chosen to prioritize the protection of healthcare professionals and other workers on the front lines of the fight against Ebola. This vaccine has demonstrated efficacy in previous outbreaks caused by a different and more common strain of the disease.
Roger Kamba made an emphatic appeal to healthcare professionals to get vaccinated, emphasizing that immunization can protect them against the illness and help prevent the transmission of the virus to their respective communities.
As of Tuesday, official government data indicated a total of 5,713 confirmed Ebola cases, with 2,744 deaths recorded. The focus of the outbreak is in Ituri province, classified as the deadliest among the 17 Ebola outbreaks that have occurred in the country.
The spread of the epidemic is occurring under extremely adverse circumstances, driven by insecurity, population movements, healthcare worker strikes, and forced displacement.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the situation remains uncontrolled and risks surpassing the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016, which was the most deadly ever documented, resulting in over 11,000 deaths, mainly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
The epidemic has also spread to Uganda. On Wednesday, the WHO declared the end of the epidemic in Uganda after recording 20 confirmed infections, 15 of which were considered imported from DRCongo, with two deaths in that group.
More than 50,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine have been received, according to the state news agency of DRCongo, which shares a border with Angola. The WHO had approved 70,000 doses of Ervebo for use in Congo the previous week.
Of these doses, about 50,000 are reserved for healthcare professionals and frontline teams, while 20,000 will be used in a clinical study to verify if the vaccine offers protection against the Bundibugyo virus, which is causing the current outbreak and for which there is still no specific treatment or vaccine.
The administration of the vaccine is being carried out under a compassionate use program, allowing the use of a drug in situations of severe illness, even if it has not been specifically approved for that purpose.
Health authorities argue that Ervebo may provide some defense against the Bundibugyo virus due to the existing relationship between the two viruses.
Placide Mbala Kingebeni, director of research, clinical trials, and innovation at the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that the data collected during the vaccination campaign will be used to measure the vaccine's effectiveness.
The vaccination campaign is planned to cover 14 health facilities in the provinces of Tshopo, Bas-Uele, and Haut-Uele. Concurrently, clinical trials continue to aim at developing a specific vaccine for the current outbreak.
According to information from the financial agency Bloomberg, the Egyptian pharmaceutical company Minapharm is about to advance to the human testing phase of a vaccine. The Minapharm group will receive funding of up to $16.5 million (approximately 14.1 million euros) from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop its vaccine against the Bundibugyo variant of Ebola, going through preclinical development and an initial clinical trial scheduled to take place in Africa.
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the body fluids of infected individuals or animals and causes severe hemorrhagic fever, accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding.
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