ECHO Flight transports aid workers and medical supplies to Ebola outbreak in DRC, May 2017. European Commission/Flickr. Some rights reserved.Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the African subcontinent, Ebola strikes back. The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that a new outbreak of the disease had occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on May 12th. On May 21st, it revealed that a fourth person – one of the 43 believed to have been affected and the 400 now being tracked as potential patients – was believed to have died as a result of the virus.
However, unlike the chaos that surrounded the first Ebola outbreak, the authorities seem largely in control. Despite the significant logistical challenge of getting the right medical help deep into the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa says that she is “optimistic” that the outbreak can be halted quickly. She also notes that WHO Africa has learned lessons from the last outbreak to become a “more responsive, accountable, effective and transparent organization”.
And of course, this time, doctors are coming armed with the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine candidate, developed by pharmaceutical giant Merck. The drug is slated to be 100% effective against one of the five strands of the virus and has demonstrated “compelling results” in previous trials, but it has not been licensed yet. Undeterred by this minor detail, the WHO has 300,000 doses on hand and Moeti has indicated that the WHO “could potentially mount a campaign within a week if all of the conditions are met and personnel, financing and logistics are in place.” And on May 23rd, the DRC submitted a formal vaccine trial protocol to an ethical review board, the first step towards deploying the vaccine.
