World #3 – Ebola vaccination campaign begins in Democratic Republic of Congo

About 8,000 doses of 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.

“The WHO [World Health Organization] 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,” the AFP news agency quoted Alfred George Ki-Zerbo, the WHO representative in Guinea, as saying.

Between December 2013 and January 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.

The BBC’s Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone says there is far more fear of Ebola in the country than Covid-19.

He says the existence of new vaccines does provide some sense of relief – there is a global emergency stockpile of 500,000, made available through Gavi, the international vaccine alliance.

The three countries have a joint population of 22.5 million, prompting concerns that manufacturers would have little time to produce more if needed at a time when Covid vaccines are their preoccupation, our reporter says.