Ebola: Africa CDC plans to use vaccine for different strain as outbreak spreads
The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control pledged to deploy a vaccine for a previous Ebola strain in the current DRC outbreak, with test cases indicating a potentially live-saving level of protection.
African health authorities plan to utilize a vaccine for the Zaire strain of Ebola to combat a current outbreak caused by a more rapidly spreading Bundibugyo strain in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC) director general, Jean Kaseya, reported that early test results showed the vaccine reducing deaths, if not symptoms, in affected individuals.
Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) also intend to investigate potential mutations in the current outbreak, which is spreading six to eight times faster than any previous outbreak. The ongoing outbreak, declared in mid-May, is already the second-largest on record, with 4,000 confirmed cases and 1,801 deaths as of Tuesday.
The current outbreak has spread to 51 health zones, compared to only nine in May. Kaseya stated that by the time a person is identified in the contact tracing program, they are likely to have been exposed to the virus 10 times more often than in previous outbreaks. The Africa CDC intends to distribute the existing Ebola vaccine for the Zaire strain, and authorities are also considering the use of the antiviral drug remdesivir in affected areas.
Written by urgent.news from Deutsche Welle Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
