Ebola vaccine, 2015?

[Peach]

Ebola vaccine to trial next month, may be ready by 2015: UN

Hope & pray this pans out:

Clinical trials of a preventative vaccine for the Ebola virus made by British pharma company GlaxoSmithKline may begin next month and made available by 2015, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

"We are targeting September for the start of clinical trials, first in the United States and certainly in African countries, since that's where we have the cases," Jean-Marie Okwo Bele, the WHO's head of vaccines and immunisation, told French radio.

He said he was optimistic about making the vaccine commercially available. "We think that if we start in September, we could already have results by the end of the year.

"And since this is an emergency, we can put emergency procedures in place ... so that we can have a vaccine available by 2015."

There is currently no available cure or vaccine for Ebola, a virus that causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.

 

[Marianne]

If this passes through the trials I wonder if it will be like the small pox vaccination and given to everybody to wipe it out?

 

[Peach]

If this passes through the trials I wonder if it will be like the small pox vaccination and given to everybody to wipe it out?

A big IF, and we know not yet the side effects; still great news, work is proceeding. Glaxo will make research money spent back in positive publicity.

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Cool. But the homo makes will just exacerbate another epidemic anyway.

 

[Peach]

Cool. But the homo makes will just exacerbate another epidemic anyway.

"homo makes", what does that mean?

 

[waltky]

Test Ebola drug '100% effective'...

Ebola: Experimental drug ZMapp is '100% effective' in animal trials
29 August 2014 ~ The only trial data on the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp shows it is 100% effective in monkey studies, even in later stages of the infection.

The researchers, publishing their data in Nature, said it was a "very important step forward". Yet the limited supplies will not help the 20,000 people predicted to be infected during the outbreak in West Africa. And two out of seven people given the drug, have later died from the disease. ZMapp has been dubbed the "secret serum" as it is still in the experimental stages of drug development with, until now, no public data on effectiveness. Doctors have turned to it as there is no cure for Ebola, which has killed more than 1,500 people since it started in Guinea.

Cocktail

Researchers have been investigating different combinations of antibodies, a part of the immune system which binds to viruses, as a therapy. Previous combinations have shown some effectiveness in animal studies. ZMapp is the latest cocktail and contains three antibodies. Trials on 18 rhesus macaques infected with Ebola showed 100% survival. This included animals given the drug up to five days after infection. For the monkeys this would be a relatively late stage in the infection, around three days before it becomes fatal.

The drug is unlikely to help the 20,000 people expected to be infected

Scientists say this is significant as previous therapies needed to be given before symptoms even appeared. One of the researchers, Dr Gary Kobinger from the Public Health Agency of Canada, said this was a huge step up from previous antibody combinations. "The level of improvement was beyond my own expectation, I was quite surprised that the best combination would rescue animals as far as day five, it was fantastic news. "What was very exceptional is that we could rescue some of the animals that had advanced disease."

Human implications?

See also:

Liberia to unseal slum cordoned off to stop Ebola
Aug 29,`14: Liberia says it will open up a slum in its capital where thousands of people were barricaded to contain the spread of Ebola.

Information Minister Lewis Brown says lifting the quarantine Saturday morning will not mean there is no Ebola in the West Point Slum. But authorities feel confident they can screen for the sick and that the community now actively fighting the disease. The slum of 50,000 people in Liberia's capital was sealed off more than a week ago, sparking unrest and leaving many without access to food or safe water. A university student infected with Ebola evaded health surveillance for weeks as he slipped into Senegal, carrying the deadly virus to a fifth West African nation showing how quarantines, border closures and flight bans have failed to contain the outbreak.

Now health officials must try to identify and monitor all of his contacts in Senegal's capital of Dakar - no small feat in a metropolitan area with more than 2 million people that serves as a major transportation hub and popular destination for European tourists. The student from Guinea finally showed up at a hospital in Dakar on Tuesday, seeking treatment but concealing that he had been in contact with other Ebola victims, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck said. The next day, an epidemiological surveillance team in neighboring Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that they had lost track of a person they were monitoring three weeks earlier, and that the person may have crossed into Senegal. The student, who is in satisfactory condition, was tracked down in the Dakar hospital the next day and immediately quarantined, Seck said. Authorities also sent out a team to disinfect the home where he was staying.

Senegal is among the African nations banning flights from Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, where the accelerating outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people. Senegal also has closed major border crossings, but West Africa's frontiers are so porous that it would be impossible to seal borders altogether. Doctors Without Borders and other public health organizations say such measures hamper relief efforts and further stigmatize people from infected countries. "The Senegal case is not unexpected. All countries in the region should be getting ready for a possible case of Ebola," said Peter Piot, a co-discoverer of Ebola who directs the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "I think it illustrates the ineffectiveness of closing borders and canceling flights. People will still find a way to get around," Piot said. Health officials instead call for checking travelers' symptoms at airports and land crossings.

Liberian health workers outside a home of a man that they believed died from the Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia, Friday, Aug. 29, 2014. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa eventually could exceed 20,000 cases, more than six times as many as are now known, the World Health Organization said Thursday. A new plan released by the U.N. health agency to stop Ebola also assumes that the actual number of cases in many hard-hit areas may be two to four times higher than currently reported.

More the 500 new cases were recorded this week, far outpacing the 400 cases from the week before, WHO announced Friday. "Emergency action needs to be taken to reverse the situation to avoid a catastrophe," U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden warned while visiting Sierra Leone on Friday. But a top official from Doctors Without Borders said "the World Health Organization can't handle" this crisis. Mego Terzian, the group's president for France, told France Inter radio that the U.N. Security Council should intervene and that countries with military medical units should get involved. "We can't create a prison in the region and watch the Africans die," Terzian said. Severe measures such as cordoning off entire neighborhoods can backfire by provoking unrest and instability that makes controlling the disease even more difficult, he warned.

On Thursday, townspeople in Guinea, confused about efforts to disinfect a market, ransacked the place and attacked the vehicles of sanitation workers. About two dozen people were injured, and a local curfew had to be imposed. Fear is one of the biggest challenges to containing this outbreak. The disease is seen as a death sentence even though about half survive, and getting good treatment early can improve the odds considerably. Many who do survive struggle to convince family and friends they're no longer contagious. Doctors are trying to help, holding ceremonies and publicly embracing patients when they are discharged to show that contact is safe. Officials in Liberia planned just such ceremony Saturday for two health care workers who have recovered after receiving ZMapp, the same experimental drug that two Americans also received before they were treated and released in the United States.

AP Newswire Stars and Stripes

 

[R.C. Christian]

The only reason they didn't roll this out years ago is because there was little profit to be had.

 

[alpine]

The only reason they didn't roll this out years ago is because there was little profit to be had.

Because people were not this stupid back than. The biggest ebola outbreak was only 500 people. This is a virus easiest to quarantine and take under control, of course, under normal conditions, with people who have some brain cells working. The only reason it is effecting this many people, is because they breaking into quarantine centers.

To have such an outbreak on a virus that only infects through bodily fluids and kills right away, is just unbelievable. Makes you lose faith in humanity...

 

[waltky]

Ebola reappears in the Congo...

Congo Faces New Ebola Outbreak
May 13, 2017 - The World Health Organization says the Democratic Republic of the Congo is again facing an outbreak of the contagious and deadly Ebola virus.

Congolese Health Minister Oly Ilunga announced Saturday that three people had died of the virus in the northeast of the country. Ilunga urged people not to panic and said officials had taken all necessary measures to respond to the outbreak. The World Health Organization said it was working with Congolese authorities to deploy health workers in the remote area where the three deaths occurred, all on April 22. Eleven other cases are suspected in the area.

This undated colorized transmission of an electron micrograph file image made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows an Ebola virus virion. Health authorities are investigating suspected cases of Ebola in a remote northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.​

WHO's regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, went to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, on Friday to discuss disease response. The remoteness of the affected area, 1,300 kilometers from Kinshasa, means word of the outbreak was slow to emerge. WHO said specialist teams were expected to arrive in the area, known as the Likati health zone, within the next day or two. This was the first outbreak of the virus in DRC since 2014, when 49 people died of Ebola.

Larger outbreak

Experts say the 2014 DRC outbreak was not linked to a much larger outbreak that killed 11,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, beginning in 2013. They say active virus transmission for that outbreak was halted last year. In December 2016, The Lancet, a medical journal, published results of a WHO-led trial showing that the world's first Ebola vaccine provides substantial protection against the virus. Among more than 11,000 people who were vaccinated in the trial, no cases of Ebola virus disease occurred. Reports say the vaccine is now awaiting formal licensing clearance.

Ebola, named for the Congolese river near where it was first identified in 1976, begins with a sudden fever, aching muscles, diarrhea and vomiting. It is a hemorrhagic fever, marked by spontaneous bleeding from internal organs and, in most cases, death. It can be transmitted by close contact with infected animals or people, usually through blood or other bodily fluids. People can contract the virus through direct contact with victims' bodies at funerals. Caretakers, nurses and doctors treating Ebola patients also are at high risk.

Congo Faces New Ebola Outbreak

See also:

WHO Confirms Second Ebola Case in Congo Outbreak
May 14, 2017 - The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Sunday a second case of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak this week of 17 other suspected cases.

Health officials are trying to trace 125 people thought to be linked to the cases identified in the remote northeastern province of Bas-Uele province in northeastern Congo near the border with Central African Republic, WHO's Congo spokesman Eugene Kabambi said. Three people have so far died among the 19 suspected and confirmed cases, he added.

A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant during a training session for Congolese health workers to deal with Ebola virus in Kinshasa​

It was not immediately clear how the first victim, a deceased male, caught the virus, although past outbreaks have been linked to contact with infected bush meat such as apes. The outbreak comes just a year after the end of an epidemic in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

However, Congo, whose dense forests contain the River Ebola near where the disease was first detected in 1976, has experienced many outbreaks and has mostly succeeded in containing them without large-scale loss of life. The GAVI global vaccine alliance said on Friday some 300,000 emergency doses of an Ebola vaccine developed by Merck could be available in case of a large-scale outbreak and that it stood ready to support the Congo government on the matter.

WHO Confirms Second Ebola Case in Congo Outbreak

Related:

Study: Most Effective Measures Identified for Containing Ebola
May 15, 2017 | WASHINGTON — A small outbreak of Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of the Congo is causing alarm among public health officials. A new study outlining containment strategies may help prevent an epidemic similar to the one that engulfed a number of western African countries two years ago.

In the timely report, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers culled 37 studies for the most effective containment strategies. Pennsylvania State University biology professor Katriona Shea, co-author of the study, said, "The best strategy that we found out of the five that we looked at were funeral containment and public information campaigns [for the] sort of care in the community."

People pass a banner reading "Stop Ebola," forming part of Sierra Leone's Ebola-free campaign in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone​

Ebola virus is spread through coming into contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals. Shea said investigators found the No. 1 way to prevent transmission was for loved ones to avoid washing bodies of the deceased prior to burial. Shea said that information is best conveyed through public health campaigns that also stress the importance of handwashing, personal hygiene and self-quarantine in high-transmission areas.

Don't wait to get treatment

People suspected of being infected with Ebola, the report found, should also not hesitate to go to the hospital or clinic for evaluation and treatment. But researchers concluded building more hospitals in response to an epidemic to be the least effective way to prevent spread of Ebola within communities. Shea said investigators undertook the study in response to the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2015, when 28,646 people became infected. Of these, 11,323 people died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone died as of March 2016, according to the report.

The Ebola virus treatment center in Paynesville, Liberia​

Forty cases of the disease were also reported in the DRC. Using the prevention strategies outlined in the study and the incidence data from the epidemic, researchers estimated that there would have been a reduction of 3,266 cases of Ebola and 1,633 lives saved.

No consensus on containment

At the height of the epidemic, Shea said there was no consensus on the best ways to contain the Ebola epidemic, and that's why researchers decided to look into the matter. "We really wanted to try to do something. Many of us have children, and were moved by stories, individual horrors and so forth," she said. "Others of us felt something we did scientifically might contribute to making the future outbreaks less horrific."

There are now three confirmed Ebola deaths in a remote part of the DRC. Public health officials are reportedly investigating a total of nine suspicious cases of the deadly viral infection. With the virus once again threatening to become a public health menace, Shea said it's not too early to begin taking aggressive measures to prevent another Ebola epidemic.

Study: Most Effective Measures Identified for Containing Ebola

 

[waltky]

Congo Approves Use of Experimental Ebola Vaccine...

WHO: Congo Approves Use of Experimental Ebola Vaccine
May 14, 2018 — Congo has agreed to allow the World Health Organization to use an experimental Ebola vaccine to combat an outbreak announced last week, the WHO director-general said Monday.

The aim is for health officials to start using the vaccine, once it's shipped, by the end of the week, or next week if there are difficulties, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We have agreement, registration, plus import permit — everything formally agreed already. And as you know that vaccine is safe and efficacious and has been already tested. So I think we can all be prepared,” he said. “All is ready now, to use it.” The outbreak was announced last week in Bikoro, in Congo's northwest. Health officials traveled there after Congo's Equateur provincial health ministry on May 3 alerted them to 17 deaths from a hemorrhagic fever. As of May 13, Congo has 39 suspected, probable and confirmed cases of Ebola since April, including 19 deaths, WHO reported. Two cases of Ebola have been confirmed.

Congo's Ministry of Health has requested that WHO send 4,000 doses of the vaccine, said ministry spokeswoman Jessyca Ilunga, who said they should arrive by the end of the week. “The vaccination campaign starts next week, everything depends on the logistics because the vaccine must be kept at minus 60 degrees Celsius, and we need to assure that the cold chain is assured from Geneva to Bikoro,” she said. The Ebola vaccination campaign will first target health workers, Ilunga said. Three nurses are among those with suspected cases, and another is among the dead. The teams on site have already identified more than 350 contacts, who are people who have had contact with the patients, she said.

A health worker is sprayed with chlorine after visiting the isolation ward at Bikoro hospital, which received a new suspected Ebola case, in Bikoro, Democratic Republic of Congo​

Mobile laboratories were deployed to Mbandaka and Bikoro on Saturday, she said, adding that results from the first 12 samples tested with that method should be available tomorrow. This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in Congo since 1976, when the deadly disease was first identified. Congo has a long track record with Ebola, WHO said. The last outbreak that was announced a year ago, was contained and declared over by July 2017. None of these outbreaks was connected to the massive outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that began in 2014 and left more than 11,300 dead. There is no specific treatment for Ebola, which is spread through the bodily fluids of people exhibiting symptoms. The new experimental vaccine, developed by the Canadian government and now licensed to the U.S.-based Merck and has been shown to be highly effective against the virus. It was tested in Guinea in 2015.

Though the Congo outbreak is of a different strain, the experimental vaccine is still thought to be safe and effective. WHO chief Tedros had led a delegation to the affected region on Sunday. The Bikoro health zone is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Mbandaka, the capital of the Equateur province, and 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Ikoko Impenge, where there are other suspected cases. WHO is working with Congo's government and other international organizations, including Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), to strengthen coordination to fight and contain the Ebola outbreak.

WHO: Congo Approves Use of Experimental Ebola Vaccine

 

[waltky]

Congo Ebola Virus Moves From Rural Area to Urban One...

DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city
17 May`18 - The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga confirmed a case in Mbandaka, a city of a million about 130km (80 miles) from where the first cases were confirmed. The city is a major transportation hub with routes to the capital Kinshasa. At least 44 people are thought to have been infected with ebola and 23 deaths are being investigated. Ebola is a serious infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal. It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.

Twenty-three people are known to have died​

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called an emergency meeting of experts to talk about the risk that Ebola might spread beyond DR Congo. It will meet on Friday to decide whether to declare an international public health emergency which would trigger a larger global response, like in the case of the 2014-16 Western African Ebola outbreak and the 2016 Zika virus in Latin America.

Why is the spread to a city such a worry?

The 2014-16 West Africa outbreak, which killed 11,300 people, was particularly deadly because it spread to the capital cities of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Senior WHO official Peter Salama said the spread to Mbandaka meant there was the potential for an "explosive increase" in cases. "This is a major development in the outbreak," he told the BBC. "We have urban Ebola, which is a very different animal from rural Ebola. The potential for an explosive increase in cases is now there."

Mr Salama, the WHO's deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, said Mbandaka's location on the Congo river, widely used for transportation, raised the prospect of Ebola spreading to surrounding countries such as Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic as well as downstream to Kinshasa, a city of 10 million people. "This puts a whole different lens on this outbreak and gives us increased urgency to move very quickly into Mbandaka to stop this new first sign of transmission," he said.

What is being done to contain the outbreak?

See also:

Practices in Place to Contain Ebola Outbreak in DRC
May 17, 2018 | WASHINGTON — The deadly Ebola virus has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but things are very different this time in the speed of response and tools available for this outbreak versus the one that hit West Africa in 2014-2016. For one, the World Health Organization is already involved.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO, led a delegation to the DRC May 13 that included Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, and Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response. Tedros and the others went to personally evaluate the response to the country’s Ebola outbreak and meet with President Joseph Kabila and the country’s minister of health.

A health worker prepares to take off protective clothing after visiting the isolation ward at Bikoro hospital, which received a new suspected Ebola case, in Bikoro, Democratic Republic of Congo​

Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at a Washington research organization, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, conducted research on the West African outbreak that claimed more than 11,000 lives and is carefully watching the current outbreak in a rural area of northeast DRC. “I thought it was very commendable and a great sign of the change of outlook that Dr. Tedros was personally there on the ground, and that was very important,” Morrison said. “It rallies the troops, it shows determination and commitment and speed.”

Rapid response

One of the changes from the 2014 outbreak is that the WHO has an emergency fund to get experts in place to start to contain the outbreak. A team left Wednesday for the country’s rural northwest. The first batch of experimental Ebola vaccines arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo May 16 and will be administered to health care workers and those exposed to the virus in days. Merck, the pharmaceutical giant that makes the vaccine, has promised the WHO to supply whatever is needed for this outbreak. Although the vaccine is not licensed, and therefore is called “experimental,” it was proved safe and effective in West Africa.

Congolese Health Ministry officials carry the first batch of experimental Ebola vaccines in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo​

A multidisciplinary team, including WHO experts and staff from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), has been in Bikoro, where the outbreak first occurred May 10. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has personnel in place. In addition, the World Food Program is providing an air bridge to get the vaccine and supplies to the affected region with several flights a day. Treatment centers that isolate the sick are in place, as are hand-washing stations containing a solution of bleach and water to kill the virus.

'A lot of learning'

 

[waltky]

WHO mulling health emergency over Congo Ebola outbreak...

WHO mulling health emergency over Congo Ebola outbreak
May 17, 2018 -- An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to a major city -- Mbandaka, with a population of about 1 million people -- officials said.

The country's health minister said authorities are intensifying work to identify those who have been in contact with suspected cases. Another concern is the disease could be spread through commerce, as the city is a major trade thoroughfare on the banks of the Congo River. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said Ebola vaccines have been delivered to help stem the crisis. "A first batch of 4000 #Ebola vaccine doses just arrived to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Additional doses should be deployed in the coming days to #DRC. There are ongoing preparations to start the ring vaccination as soon as possible," the WHO tweeted.

Despite a rapid response by authorities, there are fears the outbreak has not been contained. The WHO will hold an emergency meeting Friday to decide whether to declare an official health emergency, which would allow for more resources. So far, 23 have died and until Thursday, the more than 40 confirmed cases were all located in the area around Bikoro, about 95 miles from the provincial capital Mbandaka. "This is a concerning development, but we now have better tools than ever before to combat Ebola," said," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola spread to the northwest in Mbandaka, the World Health Organization said.​

The health organization is working with Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, and other partners to increase the capacity of health facilities to treat Ebola patients in isolation wards. WHO is also working with the Congolese Ministry of Health on prevention, treatment and reporting new cases. "We are entering a new phase of the Ebola outbreak that is now affecting three health zones, including an urban health zone," Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said. "Since the announcement of the alert in Mbandaka, our epidemiologists are working in the field to identify people who have been in contact with suspected cases."

The WHO also said there have been 27 cases of fever with hemorrhagic signs, including 17 deaths, since the start of April. This is the ninth outbreak since the discovery of the Ebola virus in the country in 1976. In 2014, an outbreak that began in West Africa left more than 11,000 dead across six countries and was not declared officially over until the beginning of 2016.

WHO mulling health emergency over Congo Ebola outbreak

See also:

WHO says DR Congo faces ‘very high’ risk from Ebola
Sat, May 19, 2018 - The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) faces a “very high” public health risk from Ebola after the disease was confirmed in one patient in a major city, the WHO said yesterday, raising its assessment from “high.”

The risk to countries in the region was increased to “high,” raised from “moderate,” but the global risk remained “low.” The reassessment came after the first confirmed case in Mbandaka, a city of about 1.5 million. Previous reports of the disease had all been in remote areas where Ebola might spread more slowly. “The confirmed case in Mbandaka, a large urban center located on major national and international river, road and domestic air routes increases the risk of spread within the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to neighboring countries,” the WHO said.

WHO Deputy Director-General for Emergency Preparedness and Response Peter Salama on Thursday had told reporters that the risk assessment was being reviewed. “We’re certainly not trying to cause any panic in the national or international community,” Salama said. “What we’re saying, though, is that urban Ebola is very different phenomenon to rural Ebola, because we know that people in urban areas can have far more contacts, so that means that urban Ebola can result in an exponential increase in cases in a way that rural Ebola struggles to do,” he said.

The WHO was later yesterday to convene an emergency committee of experts to advise on the international response to the outbreak and decide whether it constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern.” The nightmare scenario is an outbreak in Kinshasa, a crowded city where millions live in unsanitary slums not connected to a sewer system. There had been 21 suspected, 20 probable and three confirmed cases of Ebola from April 4 to Tuesday, a total of 44 cases, including 15 deaths, the WHO statement said.

The DR Congo yesterday confirmed 11 new cases of Ebola in the northwestern town of Bikoro. The WHO is sending 7,540 doses of an experimental vaccine to try to stop the outbreak in its tracks, and 4,300 doses have already arrived in Kinshasa. It would be used to protect health workers and “rings” of contacts around each case. The vaccine supplies would be enough to vaccinate 50 rings of 150 people, the WHO said. As of Tuesday, 527 contacts had been identified and were being followed up and monitored, it said.

WHO says DR Congo faces ‘very high’ risk from Ebola - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

Congo Ebola not a global health emergency quite yet...

WHO: Congo Ebola not a global health emergency
May 19, 2018 -- Two more cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo city of Mbandaka, bringing the total to three.

Despite more breakouts, The World Health Organization on Friday said the crisis being labeled an international health emergency is not warranted. The new cases of Ebola in the Congo take the number of suspected infections to 43, according to the health minister. Outbreaks were previously reported in remote areas.

Despite new cases of Ebola reported in a Congo city of 1.2 million, the World Health Organization on Friday said the crisis being labeled an international health emergency is not warranted.​

Friday's meeting was called because Mbandaka is a sprawling city of 1.2 million people, and also because the city sits on the banks of the Congo River and is a major trade thoroughfare. Nine neighboring countries, including Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic, have been advised they are at high risk of spread for the disease, according to a WHO statement.

Officials in the meeting concluded because the response government and health officials has been rapid and comprehensive, conditions were not met for an international health emergency. "Interventions underway provide strong reason to believe that the outbreak can be brought under control," according to the statement, To reinforce health services, the country is receiving international aid and on Sunday, vaccinations will begin.

WHO: Congo Ebola not a global health emergency

See also:

Congo reports one new Ebola death, prepares for vaccinations
May 20, 2018 -- The Democratic Republic of Congo's health ministry announced a new death in the Ebola outbreak Sunday, as the city of Mbandaka prepares to administer vaccinations.

A total of 26 people have died in Congo's Equateur province since the outbreak began and four new cases of Ebola virus have been confirmed by the country's health ministry. There have been 46 total cases of the hemorrhagic fever reported, including 21 confirmed cases of Ebola, 21 probable cases and four suspected cases.

Health authorities plan to begin administering vaccines in Mbandaka, which is home to 1.2 million people, on Monday in an attempt to "ringfence" the outbreak and keep it from spreading. About 4,000 doses of the vaccine have been delivered to the country and officials said more are expected to arrive.

Visitors are screened for the Ebola virus at the Economic Community of West African States Parliament secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria. A total of 26 people have died from the virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo,as health organizations prepare to administer vaccines on Monday.​

Congo Minister of Health Oly Ilunga said the vaccines would initially target a group of about 600 people, including "the health staff, the contacts of the sick and the contacts of the contacts."

The World Health Organization on Friday advised nine neighboring countries, including Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic, they are at high risk of spread for the disease. The WHO also determined the outbreak shouldn't be considered an international health emergency.

Congo reports one new Ebola death, prepares for vaccinations