“Trials of treatments and post-exposure prophylaxis are picking up speed, due to increased community engagement.
“Vaccine trials should begin in the coming weeks.
“Make no mistake: the epidemic continues to grow and continues to kill.”
“We still have many, many months ahead of us,” Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic management at the UN health agency, said.
Right response
In North Kivu, the number of cases was rising “fast”, Tedros said, with weekly cases almost doubling from about 100 to more than 200.
“The area is so vast that it is hard to speak of a single epidemic. It is many outbreaks, in many places. We must get the response right in every one of them.”
The province’s remoteness, high population mobility and attacks on humanitarian workers further complicated efforts to fight the epidemic, he said.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO issued a funding appeal in June for $518 million to support the epidemic response until November.
Both organisations and the Congolese Government earlier this month launched a new bid for $1.3 billion for the next six months, on top of the $1.1 billion requested by the UN in August for humanitarian assistance, WHO health emergencies chief Chikwe Ihekweazu said.
There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment against the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the current outbreak.
About 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which has been approved against the Zaire strain of Ebola, have been sent to the DRC to assess its effects on tackling the spread of Bundibugyo.
More than 3000 health workers and frontline staff have already been vaccinated in Kisangani, said Meg Doherty, director of science for health at the UN health agency.
An observational study led by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity will start on Saturday to evaluate the vaccine’s effectiveness in reducing illness and death, she added.
Clinical trials of two vaccines in development against Bundibugyo will take place in the country on a date to be fixed.
– AFP
Credit: Source link