To contain an outbreak of Ebola in the city of Mbandaka, the Democratic Republic of Congo started a vaccination campaign on Wednesday (27), according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
So far, two deaths from the disease have been recorded in the city of more than one million inhabitants, located in the Northwest of the country. In Mbandaka, people live in close proximity to land, water and air connections to the capital Kinshasa.
The first death occurred on April 21 and the second on Tuesday (26), marking the 14th outbreak of Ebola in the Central African country.
According to the WHO statement, about 200 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine have been sent to Mbandaka from the eastern city of Goma and more doses will be delivered in the coming days.
So far, 233 people who may have been exposed to the disease have been identified and are being monitored. Three vaccination teams work in the city, with the aim of immunizing all people at high risk.
“With effective vaccines on hand and the expertise of health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo in responding to Ebola, we can quickly change the course of this outbreak for the better,” WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.
Congo’s rainforests are a natural reservoir for the Ebola virus, which was discovered near the Ebola River in northern Congo in 1976.
The country has faced 13 previous Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2018-2020 in the East that killed nearly 2,300 people, the second highest number on record in the history of hemorrhagic fever.
The most recent ended in December in the East and caused six deaths. Mbandaka, capital of Equateur province, also faced outbreaks in 2018 and 2020.
Genetic testing showed that the current outbreak was a new “overflow event”, meaning it was transmitted from infected animals and not linked to previous events.
(Reporting by Sofia Christensen; Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Bernadette Baum)
Source: CNN Brasil