Ebola reaches 10,000 cases in the DR Congo with vaccines still in process

BarcelonaThe Ebola outbreak ravaging Central Africa already exceeds 10,000 confirmed cases and nearly 5,000 deaths, according to the latest report from the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In nearly three months, the number of deaths has doubled and the WHO fears it will end up becoming the deadliest and most contagious outbreak, even more than the one that occurred between 2014 and 2016, which ended with 11,000 deaths and about 28,000 infections in West Africa.

The current epidemic—which was officially declared in May—affects Central Africa, and has its epicenter in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are also infections in Kenya and Nigeria, and until recently in Uganda, where the end of the outbreak was declared on August 26, although the country served as a transit point for transmitting cases of infection to the other two African countries. In fact, the seventy people identified in Uganda as contacts of the first Ebola case in Kenya ended a 21-day quarantine last Sunday.

In Nigeria, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) announced this week that it will send a team of experts to deal with the expansion that the epidemic is registering in the country. The epidemiologists will provide technical support and advice and assistance in the surveillance, tracking, and control of infections.

This is the seventeenth Ebola epidemic in the DR Congo, which adds to the more than thirty outbreaks that have affected, mainly, the African continent in recent decades. The variant responsible for the current epidemic is Bundibugyo, which this time presents higher mortality rates than had been observed in other outbreaks caused by the same strain. The last outbreaks of this variant were in 2007 and 2012. Back then, the lethality rate was between 25% and 40%, but the current outbreak is already reaching 48.6%.

Vaccines arriving in dribs and drabs

The expansion of the new Ebola outbreak is taking place while the arrival of vaccines on the continent is occurring at a trickle. Llanos Ortiz, head of vaccines and epidemic response for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explains to ARA that the three main vaccines capable of dealing with the Bundibugyo variant are in process or in very early stages. The only vaccine being tested in the Congo is Ervebo, which is the one that was already used in the 2021 Ebola outbreak and which now provides a certain level of protection against the Bundibugyo virus while waiting for even more effective vaccines: “Developing a new vaccine can take a long time,” warns Ortiz.

As of now, the trials with Ervebo that have been underway for a month are only being applied to frontline healthcare workers—and not to people who have had contact with infected third parties—in areas with the highest virus transmission. The delay in the arrival of vaccines in the affected territories also has to do with logistical issues. Most of these types of vaccines must be frozen at a temperature between -80ºC and -70ºC, which gives them a shelf life of fourteen days, explains the MSF official. “One of the messages we always send to pharmaceutical companies is to accelerate the processes for creating vaccines that are as thermostable as possible”.

While the vaccines do not arrive, the main international health organizations are focusing on prevention to avoid further Ebola infections in the DR Congo, Kenya, and Nigeria from an outbreak that the WHO estimates began circulating in February of this year. The horizon that these organizations and institutions are working with is that the most effective vaccines will be available by the end of the year.