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Ebola Vaccinations Re-Start in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

April 29, 2022 • 1:02 am CDT
WHO
(Precision Vaccinations News)

The WHO Africa recently announced the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared an Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak after a case was confirmed from Mbandaka, Equateur province.

As of April 27, there have been two confirmed fatalities, and 267 contacts have been identified.

'Due to inadequate prevention measures at the health facilities, there is a risk of the virus spreading among health workers and co-patients of the two facilities which the initial patient visited before the confirmation of EVD.

The WHO says investigative measures are ongoing, including contact tracing and decontaminating households. 

On April 26th, about 200 doses of the Ervebo vaccine arrived in Mbandaka, with the 'ring' vaccination program starting the next day. 

This vaccinating strategy means the contacts - and contacts of contacts - of confirmed Ebola patients receive the vaccine, as well as health workers.

“With effective vaccines at hand and the experience of DRC health workers in Ebola response, we can quickly change the course of this outbreak for the better,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the UN agency’s Regional Director for Africa, in a related press statement.

This is the third EVD outbreak in DRC's Equateur province and the sixth in the country since 2018.

Currently, the WHO does not recommend any restriction on travel or trade to DRC based on the current situation.

However, the U.S. CDC has recently issued travel notices for the DRC regarding COVID-19, polio, and monkeypox. 

Additional Ebola outbreak news is posted at Vax-Before-Travel.com/Ebola.

Note: This article was manually curated for mobile readership.

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