Uganda: Dozens get Ebola vaccine after outbreak spreads
Uganda begins a vaccination campaign for people who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus.
Uganda confirms first Ebola case outside outbreak in Congo
June 11, 2019
The 5-year-old Congolese boy has been isolated with family members at a hospital in a western district near the Congo border, Ugandan Health Minister Jane Aceng told reporters. Two family members were being tested for Ebola after developing symptoms, with results expected on Wednesday.
The announcement puts new pressure on the World Health Organization to declare the Ebola outbreak—the second-deadliest in history—a global health emergency. The outbreak is unfolding amid unprecedented challenges of rebel attacks and community resistance in a region that had never experienced Ebola before.
In April a WHO expert committee decided that the outbreak, while of "deep concern," was not yet a global health emergency . But international spread is one of the major criteria the United Nations agency considers before such a declaration.
It was not immediately clear when the boy entered Uganda. A WHO statement said he entered on Sunday with his family through the Bwera border post. He sought treatment at Kagando hospital and was transferred to Bwera Ebola treatment unit, WHO said.
Confirmation of Ebola was made on Tuesday by the Uganda Virus Institute. "The ministry of health and WHO have dispatched a rapid response team to Kasese to identify other people who may be at risk," WHO said.
Congo's health ministry in a separate statement said the boy, from Mabalako, arrived on Monday at Congo's Kasindi border post. There, a dozen family members appeared to have symptoms and were transferred to an isolation center at the local hospital for observation.
Six family members then broke away while being transferred to an Ebola treatment center in Beni and crossed into Uganda while Congolese border officials alerted their Ugandan colleagues, Congo's health ministry said. Uganda officials found the family members at the Kagando hospital, where the boy's Ebola case was confirmed.
Officials from the two countries will meet on Wednesday about the possibility of sending the family back to Beni in Congo for treatment, the health ministry said.
It was not immediately clear how the family members were able to cross the border, where millions have travelers have been screened for Ebola since the outbreak began. WHO has advised against travel restrictions.
There have been more than 2,000 confirmed and probable cases of the Ebola virus in Congo since August, with nearly 1,400 deaths. The disease is spread mainly through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.
For the first time an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine is being widely used, with more than 130,000 doses distributed. Uganda has vaccinated nearly 4,700 health workers, WHO said.
The East African nation has had multiple outbreaks of Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers since 2000.
"The spread of Ebola across the international border is a clear signal that the international community must reset and redouble its efforts" in fighting the disease, the International Rescue Committee said in a statement calling itself "extremely alarmed."
Uganda gives go-ahead for Ebola vaccine
Uganda will become the first country in the world to give the vaccine against Ebola without experiencing an active outbreak. The vaccine, is already being given out in the DRC.
“Considering the high risk that it could cross over from the DRC, Ugandan government officials have agreed to use the vaccine. The focus will be on the first ones who will see patients, or who will be involved in screening and burials,” Yonas Woldermariam, the World Health Organization Representative in Uganda told the BBC’s Patience Atuhaire in an interview.
Woldermariam told The BBC that 2,100 doses were already in the country, and they are looking to raise it to 3,000 doses, mainly for front-line health workers AND first responders against the dreaded disease. He hailed Ugandan officials for the high level of Ebola preparedness responses, that have included lobbying government support, surveillance and screening at entry points into the country.
This vaccine, although not commercially licensed, is being used under “expanded access” or what is also known as “compassionate use” in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, according to WHO. This vaccine was also used in the Ebola outbreak in Equateur in May-July 2018.
In 2015, the vaccine was given to more than 16,000 volunteers involved in several studies in Africa, Europe and the United States where it was found to be safe and protective against the Ebola virus.
“What is happening for Uganda is exemplary. They understand the risk, have mobilised govt to get prepared. However, community surveillance and awareness is most important for the community to take necessary precautions,” Woldermariam said in the BBC interview.
More about the vaccine
The investigational vaccine called rVSV-ZEBOV, which has shown to be safe and protective against the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus, is recommended by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE)1 for use in Ebola outbreaks caused by the Zaire strain of the virus, in the event where there is no licensed vaccine. The vaccine consists of a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which is an animal virus that causes flulike illness in humans. The VSV has been genetically engineered to contain a protein from the Zaire Ebola virus so that it can provoke immune response to the Ebola virus.
Although several studies have shown that the vaccine is safe and protective against the Ebola virus, more scientific research is needed before the vaccine can be licensed. The vaccine is therefore being used on compassionate basis, to protect persons at highest risk of the Ebola outbreak, under a “ring vaccination” strategy, which is similar to the approach used to eradicate smallpox.
Persons who receive the vaccine may develop adverse effects following the vaccination. In the Ebola
vaccine study in Guinea in 2015, most adverse effects were typically mild. Vaccinated individuals most commonly reported headache, fatigue, muscle pain and mild fever, the WHO website stated.
Update from DRC – 170 dead
The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 170 lives, AFP reported on Sunday. The health ministry said in a bulletin they had recorded 267 cases including 170 deaths.
Meanwhile, the DRC Ebola outbreak is not a global emergency ‘at this time’ WHO, said earlier.
“Based on the current context… the committee recommended that the current Ebola outbreak in DRC does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I have accepted the recommendation of the committee,” he told reporters in Geneva following a meeting of the UN agency’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee.
In the WHO’s parlance, “a public health emergency of international concern” is an “extraordinary event” in which a disease may spread across borders and requires a vigorous international response.
Tedros stressed though that the decision not to use the label for the epidemic that has killed at least 139 people in DRC’s violence-torn North Kivu region since August “does not mean that WHO is not taking the outbreak seriously.”
The latest outbreak — the 10th in DR Congo since Ebola was first detected there in 1976 — emerged in the highly-restive northeastern region of North Kivu, which is home to a clutch of armed groups.
The area, near the Ugandan border, is also densely populated and nine neighbouring countries have been advised that they are at high risk of spread.
