Silver Lining: New, 97% effective Ebola vaccine saves lives during current epidemic

The current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is brutal. This is the second largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. It infected at least 1,273 people and killed 821 people.

But if there is anything positive about this tragedy, it is that an experimental vaccine rolled out last year would have an efficiency of 97.5%.

The vaccine, called the EbV vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV-GP, has been administered to more than 90,000 people, including nearly 30,000 health professionals and front-line workers, probably saving several thousand lives.

It is produced by Merck & Co and contains a harmless live attenuated virus, designed to express an Ebola glycoprotein. This allows the immune system to become aware of how to fight the current strain of Ebola virus, called strain Zaire, before being exposed to the infection.

The outbreak – which began in August 2018 – currently concerns two areas: the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri in the DRC. But these two places are found in the east of the country, near southern Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda, and although the virus has not spread yet, it's a possibility real unless things get controlled.

Despite this precarious position, the World Health Organization (WHO) has chosen not to declare a global health emergency, following the meeting of an expert group on emergencies meeting in Geneva on Friday.

"Although the rise in the number of people in some areas has caused great concern, the epidemic has not spread internationally," Robert Steffen, president of the press, told reporters. committee of urgency.

That being said, with the 2014 epidemic infecting 30,000 people and causing more than 11,000 deaths, Steffen says that non-reporting does not mean "we can rest and relax."

Since the beginning of the epidemic, Merck & Co has shipped nearly 145,000 doses, including approximately 100,000 more in the coming months.

The researchers are focusing on a strategy called "ring vaccination", only vaccinating the people most likely to be infected, for example a community group where a person has developed Ebola.

"Only 8.8% of vaccinated rings reported cases of Ebola and only 2.2% of Ebola cases 10 days or more after vaccination," explain the researchers.

"These early results confirm previous observations of a high efficacy of the rVSV-ZEBOV-GP Ebola against disease."

"The ring vaccination strategy works because of the quick protection after a single dose and the high coverage achieved in the rings," they added.

But nobody is still in the clear. In the midst of the crisis, mistrust of health officials and health workers is high in the DRC population, and in a recent study published in the newspaper Infectious diseases lancetthe researchers found that only 32% of respondents thought that local authorities represented their interests and 25% felt that the epidemic was not real.

Trish Newport of Doctors Without Borders also sounds the alarm – explaining to AP that 75% of new Ebola cases have no obvious connection to previous patients, which means that officials have lost the trace of the spread of the virus.

So even with a very effective vaccine, we will have to make sure that all stakeholders are on the bridge to control this outbreak.

You can read more about the preliminary results of the vaccine in a WHO research paper here.