PREVIEW
The UN’s warning about the lack of vaccines has turned a health emergency into a test of Africa’s stalled manufacturing plans
World Health Organization officials reported at least 139 suspected Ebola deaths on 21 May and said neither of the two candidate vaccines for the Bundibugyo species has yet reached clinical trials. That leaves the response reliant on containment measures and prompts more scrutiny on African Union- and European Union-backed plans that will take years to deliver meaningful vaccine production capacity on the continent.
The death toll from Ebola in Congo-Kinshasa is likely to spike sharply in the coming weeks, the WHO has warned. It is likely to be at least nine months before a vaccine against this strain of Ebola is ready.
The WHO is ranking the outbreak as an ‘international health emergency’ rather than an ‘epidemic’ the designation given to the 2014-2016 outbreak.
For now, the AU and other international organisations say there is only a low risk of the virus spreading. Congo-K has banned travel to Ituri province in the country’s north-east border with Uganda and South Sudan, where almost all of the cases have been reported.
But WHO advisor Dr Vasee Moorthy told journalists that neither of the two ‘candidate vaccines’ against the Bundibugyo species had got to the clinical trial phases.
As the new vaccine is under trial, demands will intensify to accelerate the continent’s vaccine production capacity (AC Vol 61 No 20, Paths out of the pandemic). For now, initiatives launched by the AU with the European Union to diversify supply chains and increase Africa’s vaccine production, will take at least another five years to start.
The AU targets 2040 for the continent to produce 60% of its own key vaccines. The EU’s Africa-focused Global Health Resilience Initiative, launched in mid-May, quotes the same timeline but is due to open an initial production facility in Cape Town in 2028.
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