Ebola vaccine experiment to start this weekend as death toll SURGES to 20
AN EXPERIMENTAL Ebola vaccine is due to be tested on patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo this weekend as health officials step up efforts to prevent the disease from spreading.
By Joshua Nevett
DailyStar.co.uk
16th May 2018
At least 20 people are suspected to have been killed and 42 infected by the deadly disease in DRC, putting scores of African countires on high alert over fears of another continent-wide epidemic.
Some 4,000 doses of the experimental treatment to battle the disease, a type of viral hemorrhagic fever, arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa on Wednesday.
The vaccination programme would start on the weekend in the country’s northwestern Equateur province, where dozens of others are suspected to have been infected, DCR’s Health Ministry said.
The vaccines were dispatched from Geneva, Switzerland, by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Lab tests have only confirmed two cases of Ebola in the central African country, but the suspected cases are in the dozens.
More than 400 people are thought to have have contact with the disease, which is typically transmitted through the bodily fluids and faeces of animals, especially fruit bats.
The vaccine, made by Merck, proved to be effective during the last major Ebola outbreak between 2014 and 2016, which killed more than 11,000 people across West Africa.
The vaccine is still unlicensed, but was authorised for usage by CDR’s government last week.
Professor William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said the vaccine could be crucial in the fight to curtail the outbreak.
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