The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that an Ebola vaccination campaign has been launched in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a recent outbreak. The country has confirmed four cases since a resurgence of the virus was announced in Butembo.
The WHO said Health workers at a medical centre, where the first Ebola (a virus that initially causes sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat) patient was treated, were the first to be vaccinated. The news comes after Guinea, in West Africa, declared an outbreak.
A previous Ebola outbreak in DR Congo was declared over in June 2020 after it was claimed the lives of 2,287 people since August 2018. Reports from the capital Kinshasa have stated that the Ervebo vaccine which were kept after the outbreak, are being used in the latest inoculation campaign.
Ervebo was the first Ebola vaccine to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2019. Separately, Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak, following seven confirmed cases and three deaths.
Alfred George Ki-Zerbo, the WHO representative in Guinea was quoted as saying: "The WHO is on full alert and is in contact with the manufacturer of a vaccine to ensure the necessary doses are made available as quickly as possible to help fight back." Between 2013 and 2016 more than 11,000 people died in the West Africa Ebola epidemic, which began in Guinea.
Liberia's President George Weah has put the health authorities on heightened alert to prevent the spread of the virus.
There is far more fear of Ebola in the country than Covid-19 as it progresses to vomiting, diarrhoea, and both internal and external bleeding with people getting infected when they have direct contact through broken skin, or the mouth and nose, with the blood, vomit, faeces or bodily fluids of someone with the virus.