Africa CDC counts 5,376 Ebola deaths as the Bundibugyo strain keeps spreading with no approved vaccine
More than 10,000 people have been infected since May, mostly in Congo; a vaccine trial in Ituri should show whether an existing vaccine also protects against this strain.
The Ebola epidemic in Central and East Africa has now claimed 5,376 lives, the African health agency Africa CDC announced on Monday: 5,372 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two each in Uganda and Kenya, Belga reports via La Libre. In total 10,444 infections have been recorded, with a fatality rate of more than 50 percent. Euronews, citing AFP, describes it as the fastest-growing and most widespread Ebola outbreak ever recorded. Congo declared the outbreak, its seventeenth, in mid-May, Al Jazeera writes; according to specialists the virus had already been circulating for months by then.
The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which no approved vaccine or drug exists. On 23 October the World Health Organization launched a clinical trial in Bunia, capital of Ituri province and the epicentre, with Ervebo, a vaccine that has proven effective against the more common Zaire strain, Al Jazeera reported. High-risk contacts are vaccinated in a ring around infected people. Two vaccines specifically targeting Bundibugyo, from the University of Oxford and from Moderna, are due to join later; pregnant women and children aged twelve and over can also take part.
Outside Congo, Uganda counted twenty cases, almost all of them people who had come from Congo; the country was declared Ebola-free in August. Kenya reported its first nine infections ever in October, and in Nigeria an imported case was confirmed in October in a Swiss woman who had been in Uganda. In Congo itself, resources are lacking in remote areas and armed groups make it hard for aid workers to move around, according to Belga.