EBOLA VIRUS DRCongo-CDC WARNINGS-OPEN SOURCE NOTES

DE FAAKTO OUTBREAK INTELLIGENCE

SITUATION-DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE CDC WARNING NOTES

BACKGROUND-EBOLA IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO CONCERN FOR SPREAD OUTSIDE REGION AND SHORTAGE OF EXPERIMENTAL EBOLA VACCINES

 

Open Source Ebola Notes

From Robert Redfield director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

  • Robert Redfield, MD, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Congress that the world must be prepared for this outbreak to spread internationally, and for vaccine supplies to dwindle
  • Dr. Redfield said vaccine production is being held up by plant validation
  • Merck had manufactured the vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, in Pennsylvania until recently moving the operation to Germany
  • There are currently about 145 000 doses of the vaccine, too few for a planned broader vaccination campaign that would look toward vaccinating geographic regions instead of contact rings
  • Dr. Redfield warns that vaccine supplies could become dangerously low

 

From Mike Ryan, MD, WHO assistant director-general

  • About 20% of Ebola case-patients 1st seek healthcare in a health zone far away from where they live, which makes it hard to make connections between transmission chains
  • Additionally, several deaths are still occurring in the community
  • Each community death, Ryan said, raises the risk of further disease spread
  • Ryan also said the WHO estimates it is detecting 75% of cases, with as many as 25% missed or being picked up “too late.”

 

From The New York Times

  • Dr. Redfield from the CDC, told a Senate subcommittee that sometime between May and mid-September, Congo could run out of an Ebola vaccine that is widely believed to have kept the epidemic from becoming even worse
  • More than 87,000 people have received the vaccine, which is being donated by its manufacturer, Merck
  • The vaccine is not yet licensed and cannot be sold
  • Merck has donated 133,000 doses
  • Merck keeps a stockpile of 300,000 doses, which it replenishes by making more vaccine whenever doses are deployed for outbreaks
  • Mercks commitment is to keep at least 300,000 doses

 

The epidemiological situation of the Ebola Virus Disease 

  • 2039 Ebola cases
  • 1373 deaths
  • 552 people healed
  • 111 Contaminated health workers (5.4%)
  • 37 deaths
  • 131 267 People vaccinated with rVSV-ZEBOV

 

ProMED-mail  http://www.promedmail.org/

Reuters  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-ebola-who/one-in-four-ebola-cases-undetected-in-congo-who-idUSKCN1T71WO

The New York Times  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/ebola-congo-cdc.html