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CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

washingtonpost.com

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Re: CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

#2
Uganda is preemptively vaccinating front line/first responder workers with an experimental, unlicensed vaccine (with WHO backing) that has shown efficacy in attempts to contain the virus.

> Country becomes first to administer experimental vaccine without active outbreak of the deadly disease, in bid to protect 2,000 medics close to DRC border

> “In previous [Ebola] outbreaks, Uganda lost health workers, including the renowned Dr Matthew Lukwiya, as they cared for patients,” said Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, WHO’s Uganda representative. “Scientists believe such invaluable lives would have been saved had a vaccine been in existence then.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/06/u...

Re: CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

#3

Uganda is preemptively vaccinating front line/first responder workers with an experimental, unlicensed vaccine (with WHO backing) that has shown efficacy in attempts to contain the virus. > Country becomes first to administer experimental vaccine without active outbreak of the deadly disease, in bid to protect 2,000 medics close to DRC border > “In previous [Ebola] outbreaks, Uganda lost health workers, including the…

> including the renowned Dr Matthew Lukwiya

Short video about Dr. Lukwiya's story. He was on a sabbatical, but rushed back to provide aid, while others were running in panic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7LpjpuOvc8

Re: CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

#4
post #3

Uganda is preemptively vaccinating front line/first responder workers with an experimental, unlicensed vaccine (with WHO backing) that has shown efficacy in attempts to contain the virus. > Country becomes first to administer experimental vaccine without active outbreak of the deadly disease, in bid to protect 2,000 medics close to DRC border > “In previous [Ebola] outbreaks, Uganda lost health workers, including the…

> including the renowned Dr Matthew Lukwiya Short video about Dr. Lukwiya's story. He was on a sabbatical, but rushed back to provide aid, while others were running in panic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7LpjpuOvc8

"Look for the helpers" -- Mr. (Fred) Roger's mother.

Re: CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

#7
Some interesting data about the efficacy of the experimental vaccine that is being used to try to control the outbreak.

> Merck's Jakub Simon, MD, MS, addressing a session at the American Society of Tropical Medicine's (ASTMH) annual meeting here, showed two charts tracking Ebola during this past spring's outbreak in the DRC's Equateur province and the subsequent one now raging in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. In both, health workers on the ground have been using the Merck vaccine in a so-called ring vaccination strategy to contain the epidemic. Although not yet formally approved for marketing, the vaccine has been cleared for emergency use.

> In Equateur, immediately after vaccination began with the Merck product, the outbreak petered out.

> But the experience in North Kivu and Ituri has been quite different. Although new cases dropped significantly after vaccination began in early August, they never approached zero, and 2 months later they rocketed back to the level seen before vaccinations began.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/astmh/76018

Re: CDC director warns that Congo's Ebola outbreak may not be containable

#9

Uganda is preemptively vaccinating front line/first responder workers with an experimental, unlicensed vaccine (with WHO backing) that has shown efficacy in attempts to contain the virus. > Country becomes first to administer experimental vaccine without active outbreak of the deadly disease, in bid to protect 2,000 medics close to DRC border > “In previous [Ebola] outbreaks, Uganda lost health workers, including the…

That's the thing about a disease that kills >50% of the people it infects -- there's no ethical risk in using untested, unproven vaccines to fight it. It's still better than the alternative, even if there's bad side effects.
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