The Democratic Republic of Congo has taken delivery of its first 16,520 doses of an Ebola vaccine as officials confront an outbreak that has killed more than 2,500 people and spread through six provinces.
The Ervebo shipment arrived in Kinshasa late Friday, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said. More than 50,000 additional doses are expected to reach the country by Monday.
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“These doses would strengthen the government’s response to Ebola and contribute to the protection of populations, with the support of our partners,” Kamba told reporters at Kinshasa airport.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that Congo would receive 70,000 Ervebo doses from the global Ebola vaccine stockpile. Some 20,000 will be allocated to a Phase 3 clinical trial assessing whether the vaccine protects against the strain behind the current outbreak. The remaining 50,000 doses will go to frontline personnel and health workers.
Merck developed the vaccine, which is manufactured in Germany. It is licensed and recommended for outbreaks caused by the Zaire strain of Ebola. Congo’s current epidemic, however, has been driven by the Bundibugyo strain, for which neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment has been approved.
Researchers have not established whether Ervebo protects against Bundibugyo. Preliminary findings, including results from animal studies, indicate the vaccine may provide some cross-protection. That evidence led WHO experts this month to call for a large human trial.
Kamba noted that Ervebo has been used repeatedly during earlier Ebola emergencies, including the major epidemic that affected Congo and neighboring countries from 2018 to 2020.
“This vaccine has already been used several times, and in particular on a very large scale during the 2018-2020 outbreak,” he said.
Congo officially declared its latest outbreak — the country’s 17th — on May 15, although officials believe the virus had been circulating for weeks. It has now reached 56 health zones in Haut-Uele, Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Bas-Uele and Tshopo provinces.
Many of those areas are contending with critical shortages of health care, a limited government presence and continuing insecurity linked to armed groups.
According to the Health Ministry’s latest situation report, confirmed infections have reached 5,290, with more than 2,500 deaths.
The epidemic continues to expand. Julien Harneis, the United Nations’ senior Ebola coordinator, said Friday that it was “growing exponentially.”
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said communities affected by the outbreak still lack the support needed to bring the virus under control.
The organization called for an urgent expansion of training for health workers and community leaders, with an emphasis on identifying suspected cases, referring patients and applying infection prevention and control measures in communities.
The absence of an approved vaccine for Bundibugyo has heightened pressure to develop a targeted preventive tool. Two candidates are currently undergoing clinical trials: one developed by U.S.-based Moderna using mRNA technology, and another produced by the University of Oxford in Britain.
Hilleman Laboratories, based in Singapore, is separately developing a vaccine known as rVSV Bundibugyo. The WHO has called it the most promising candidate specifically designed to target the strain.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people and can cause severe fever along with other potentially fatal symptoms. The disease has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past five decades.
