A panel of experts led by the World Health Organization meets on Tuesday \u200cto discuss whether there are any vaccine options to help tackle an\u00a0Ebola outbreak\u00a0in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
The virtual meeting follows more than 130 suspected deaths and 500 cases linked to the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain \u200bof Ebola, according to the WHO, which, along with the Africa Centers for Disease Control \u200band Prevention, has declared it a public health emergency.<\/p>\n
There are no approved vaccines or \u2060treatments for the\u00a0Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has a fatality rate of up to 40%.<\/p>\n
VACCINE OPTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n However, \u200bthere is a vaccine named Ervebo, manufactured by Merck\u00a0(MRK.N), opens new tab, that is used for the Ebola Zaire strain \u200bbut has shown evidence of providing some protection against Bundibugyo in animal studies.<\/p>\n The potential for testing this and other options will be on the agenda of the meeting of the WHO Technical Advisory Group, the WHO and other \u200bscientists said. But the final decision will lie with the governments of Congo and neighbouring Uganda, where \u200btwo confirmed cases have also been found. Potential treatments will also be discussed.<\/p>\n “When you have an outbreak with a \u200cstrain \u2060that does not have countermeasures, we are going to advise on the best approach to take,” said Dr Mosoka Fallah, acting director of the science department at Africa CDC. “We will look at what evidence we have and make a decision.”<\/p>\n The vaccine group Gavi holds a stockpile of Ebola vaccines. Its chief \u200bexecutive, Sania Nishtar, said \u200b2,000 doses were already \u2060in Congo, if the experts decided it should be used in a trial there.<\/p>\n Some experts said the outbreak could still be difficult to control.<\/p>\n “Our concern \u200babout this outbreak is pretty high,” said Richard Hatchett, head of the \u200bCoalition for Epidemic \u2060Preparedness Innovations, which funds the development of new vaccines and is looking at potential candidates.<\/p>\n He said a 2018-19 outbreak in the same region of Congo, caused by Ebola Zaire, took two years to control because \u2060of the \u200bsecurity situation there, even with a vaccine that was already \u200bapproved and available for use.<\/p>\n “The security situation is very serious, and so testing things in clinical trials will be challenging, but \u200bwill be necessary as well,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A panel of experts led by the World Health Organization meets on Tuesday \u200cto discuss whether there are any vaccine options to help tackle an\u00a0Ebola outbreak\u00a0in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The virtual meeting follows more than 130 suspected deaths and 500 cases linked to the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain \u200bof Ebola, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,2854],"tags":[3016,75,222],"class_list":["post-20918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-health","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-ebola","tag-world-health-organization-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20919,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20918\/revisions\/20919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}