Health workers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will begin administering vaccinations against a new outbreak of Ebola virus starting Wednesday (August 8), Reuters reports.
The vaccine is experimental, but was used on a wide scale to combat the outbreak in northwestern Congo that was declared over two weeks again (July 24). Still, thousands of doses remain in the country’s capital, Kinshasa. Using the remaining vaccine doses in the new outbreak is “common sense,” a DRC Ministry of Public Health spokesperson tells ScienceInsider, because both scientific and ethical committees have already given the go ahead to continue to study the effectiveness of the vaccine. In the earlier outbreak, preliminary data indicate that 3,300 individuals were vaccinated and none of them became infected with Ebola, ScienceInsider reports.
The current outbreak is in the North Kivu region, on the opposite side of DRC from the last outbreak. Barthe Ndjoloko, who oversees ...
