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Uganda will start vaccinating health services and other front-line workers against the Ebola virus next week, as the big epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo spreads across the border.
Ugandan Minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng, MBChB, MMed, MPH, said Merck's V920 experimental vaccine would be given to workers in high-risk districts starting Monday. The country has 2,100 doses of vaccine available, said Aceng.
As of Thursday, the DRC has reported at least 250 cases and 145 deaths in the ongoing epidemic in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri and reported that 41 other suspected cases were undergoing investigation. North Kivu and Ituri border the western border of Uganda.
Until now, the Ugandan Ministry of Health said that there had been no confirmed cases of Ebola in the country, but that there was a search continuing infections "in all communities, health facilities and at formal and informal border crossings in all districts, especially in high-risk areas. In the meantime, the country appears to be preparing for the possibility of seeing cases, by organizing training sessions on Ebola prevention and control, case management and surveillance, the ministry said. .
"An undiagnosed Ebola patient could go to a health facility in Uganda for medical treatment. This context exposes health care workers and front-line workers in Uganda to the risk of being in contact with a case of EVD in the context of the current epidemic in the DRC, the ministry said.
The DRC has used Merck's experimental vaccine in two outbreaks this year – the first time a vaccine has been deployed to stop the Ebola virus. More than 25,000 people have been vaccinated since the beginning of the recent epidemic that began just days after the control of the previous one. Like Uganda, the DRC has also given priority to health care workers, who are at increased risk of infection during Ebola outbreaks.
The vaccine will be deployed in Uganda as part of an "expanded access" – or "compassionate use" – used for unlicensed products. The DRC has used the recommended ring vaccination strategy, in which contacts of confirmed cases and their contacts are vaccinated. This is how the vaccine was tested during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Uganda also indicated that it would use ring vaccination.
The escalation of violence by armed opposition groups in the government has made it difficult to respond to the current epidemic. This and considerable cross-border movements between the DRC and other neighboring countries have raised concerns about the spread of the virus. On 27 September, WHO announced the first cases in a health zone near the Ugandan border and said the risk of regional spread was "very high". – by Gérard Gallagher
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