Congo approves use of experimental Ebola vaccine, WHO says

The Democratic Republic of Congo has cleared the way for the World Health Organization to deploy a trial vaccine against a deadly outbreak of Ebola in the northwestern part of the country.

WHO has a stockpile of the vaccine, which is made by Merck and was highly effective against Ebola in Guinea in 2015. Though not fully licensed yet, the vaccine is available under an “expanded access” program for use in emergencies.

WHO officials expect the first of 4,000 requested vaccines to arrive this week near the town of Bikoro. It is hard to get there, however, and the shots must be stored in extremely cold temperatures, so the project will be challenging.

So far, there have been 39 confirmed or suspected Ebola cases — only two have been verified by a lab — and 19 deaths tied to the outbreak.

The vaccines will be given to “rings” of people that include contacts of infected persons, the contacts of those contacts and front-line health workers. Participation is free and voluntary, and people who refuse the shot will not be denied health services if they need them.

The Congo’s health ministry and international workers will check up on vaccinated persons six times, covering a span of three days to 84 days after vaccination.

Merck says it has a stockpile of 300,000 emergency doses of its vaccine, known as rVSV-ZEBOV. The company is targeting 2019 for full licensure of the vaccine, as it works its way through the regulatory process.

Ebola is a serious illness that is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads from human to human through the bodily fluids of people who exhibit symptoms. About half of those who contract Ebola die from it.

This is the ninth Ebola outbreak recorded in the Congo since 1976, when the disease was discovered there.

WHO and local officials were able to quickly control an outbreak in an isolated part of the Democratic Republic of Congo last year, but a devastating epidemic swept through densely populated areas of West Africa from 2013 to 2016, killing more than 11,000 people across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and sparking a U.S. debate about travel bans and whether to quarantine returning health workers.