EBOLA – A SUCCESS STORY?

■ Outbreaks of Ebola have been documented since the 1970s, primarily in areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where scientists believe the virus is always present at low levels in infected wild animals. When the 11th recorded outbreak of Ebola in the DRC was declared in June 2020 in Équateur province, the country braced for the impact of one of the world’s deadliest diseases. The previous outbreak, in 2018, killed 2,287 people, while another across three West African countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone) from 2014 to 2016 resulted in more than 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths. Yet, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the latest outbreak looks different to its predecessors. The disease has progressed at a slow pace, producing small clusters in isolated areas and a lower overall mortality rate. One possible explanation is that some sort of natural immunity exists among people in Équateur province, as this region has experienced Ebola outbreaks before. In addition, MSF says it’s benefiting from scientific progress, including a vaccine and curative treatments that have proven to be effective in clinical trials.

In 2019, in the wake of the 2014–16 West Africa Ebola epidemic – which briefly alarmed the West after a handful of cases emerged in Europe – a vaccine, Ervebo, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. MSF has since vaccinated Ebola frontline workers and patient contacts in remote communities. However, Ervebo isn’t new; it was actually developed in 2003 and subsequently licensed to Merck, the multinational pharmaceutical company. It remained commercially unavailable during the 2014 outbreak as trials were still taking place. ‘We’ve known about Ebola since 1976, there was a suitable vaccine candidate, but it just sat on a shelf. When the 2014 outbreak came long,’ says Martin, ‘that was absolutely infuriating.’