DR Congo and WHO race to prevent runaway Ebola outbreak
Congolese and U.N. officials were racing on Thursday
to prevent a runaway Ebola outbreak in Congo, working out the logistics
of keeping newly arrived vaccines well below freezing in a steamy
region on the equator with unreliable power.
World Health Organization (WHO)
spokesman Christian Lindmeier said the U.N. body would convene an
Emergency Committee meeting on Friday to consider the international
risks.
This is Democratic Republic of Congo’s ninth epidemic since the
disease was identified in the 1970s, but also its most alarming because
of the risk of transmission via regular river transport to the capital
Kinshasa, a city of 10 million.
There have already been 44 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of
Ebola, and 23 people have died. Potentially most worrying is a confirmed
case in Mbandaka, a city of about 1 million connected to Kinshasa by
the Congo River.
“This does change the way we need to respond,” Peter Salama, WHO’s medical emergency programme head told Reuters TV in Geneva.
“Overnight, Mbandaka has become the number one priority for preventing this outbreak from getting out of control.”
The other Ebola cases were spread across sites in remote areas where the disease might not travel quickly.
Already the WHO has warned that there is a
“moderate” regional risk because the disease could travel along the
Congo River to Central African Republic and Congo Republic. But it has
said the global risk is low because of the remoteness of the area and
the rapid response launched so far.
Deployment of Ebola vaccine
An experimental but highly effective vaccine is being deployed, with
health workers being vaccinated first, but it normally needs to be kept
80 degrees Celsius below freezing in a humid region where daytime
temperatures hover around 30.
“For now, the cold chain is guaranteed at -80 degrees until
Kinshasa,” Health Minister Oly Ilunga told Reuters. “There is a fridge
that will be prepared (on Thursday) … in Mbandaka and that will be at
-80.”
“This vaccine is no longer experimental. The effectiveness has been
proven and validated,” he added. “Now that we are facing the Ebola virus
we must use all the resources we have.”
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Reuters
the vaccine can still be effective for up to two weeks if stored in a
fridge at between 8 and 2 degrees above freezing.
REUTERS
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