New Ebola vaccine sent to battle outbreak in Congo

When the Ebola virus swept through West Africa in 2014, it hit capital cities so quickly that medical professionals were left with few options to prevent its spread.

Soon, health care workers and those who touched the bodies of the dead were coming down with the virus themselves and then passing it to others. By the time the outbreak was finally contained, more than 11,000 people had died.

Now, experts hope a vaccine can help contain a new outbreak of the virus in Congo — a simple intervention that could potentially have saved thousands of lives had it been ready in 2014.

On Friday, the World Health Organization announced its plan to send the experimental vaccine to northwest Congo, where there have been about 32 suspected or confirmed cases since early April, and 18 deaths.

“We are very concerned and planning for all scenarios, including the worst case scenario,” Peter Salama, WHO’s deputy directorgeneral of emergency preparedness and response, said in Geneva on Friday.

Challenges will include keeping the vaccine at low temperatures in Congo’s heat and with the lack of infrastructure in a rural area, as well as getting the vaccine to those who have been exposed to the virus. Despite it occurring outside an urban area, this particular outbreak may be harder to contain because it has already spread across 37 miles. Some of those infected are health workers, which poses an additional risk of transmission to others. Those who help bury or clean the bodies of the infected are also at high risk.

On Friday, Salama said he has spoken to Congo’s health minister and hoped that he would soon have approval to use the vaccine, which was developed by Merck in 2016. In a trial of 11,800 people in Guinea in 2015, the vaccine had 100 percent efficacy, giving hope it could be a game-changer in preventing Ebola from spreading.