Vaccine for Ebola could be ready by November: WHO

A worker in a Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) suit is seen inside the high-risk quarantined zone of Monrovia’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital, as foreigners are seen walking on the other side of the wall.

DPA/Geneva

A vaccine against the Ebola virus that has killed more than 2,100 people in West Africa could be available by November, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday.

Two promising vaccines were currently being tested, said WHO deputy secretary general Marie-Paule Kieny.

If the trials were successful, doctors and nurses in Ebola-affected countries could be vaccinated.

Several experimental Ebola drugs will be tested in the five affected countries – Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal – once sufficient quantities are available.

This could, however, take several months, Kieny said.

Medical experts, who had come to Geneva from across the globe to discuss possible Ebola vaccines and cures, said blood and plasma transfusions could also be treatment options, if hospitals had the necessary equipment.

Due to the severity of the Ebola outbreak, the WHO is advocating to allow treatments that are not yet fully tested on humans.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths from the Ebola epidemic surpassed 2,000 in the three worst-affected West African countries, according to the organisation.

In addition to the 2,097 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, eight people have died in Nigeria, where the outbreak is limited.

The WHO has counted 3,944 suspected and confirmed cases in the hardest-hit countries, 23 in Nigeria and one in Senegal.

The European Commission said yesterday that it will provide €132mn ($171mn) in new funding to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, increasing its aid to help tackle the crisis more than 10-fold.

“The situation is going from bad to worse, despite the brave efforts of humanitarian organisations,” EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement. “The needs are outpacing the international community’s capacity to react.”

More than 20,000 people could end up being infected with the deadly virus before the outbreak can be contained, the WHO said last week.

It has estimated that at least $600mn in aid is needed to control the epidemic if transmission of the lethal virus is to be halted within the next six to nine months.

The EU had previously pledged €11.9mn in humanitarian aid for the crisis.

The €140mn package announced yesterday – which includes €8mn of already previously pledged funds – will be used to strengthen healthcare systems in affected countries, provide mobile laboratories and offer budget support to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“The ongoing Ebola crisis remains extremely concerning not just because of its obvious impact on health services, but also due to the wider challenges it brings to the region in terms of economic stability, food security, water and sanitation,” EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs noted.

The UN, for its part, has funnelled more than $6mn to humanitarian organisations in West Africa since April through its central emergency response fund, the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said yesterday.

Guinea has received $2.7mn, while Liberia and Sierra Leone have been provided with $1.9mn and $1.5mn respectively, according to OCHA.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the international community, including governments, the private sector and non-profit organisations, to contribute money and supplies to the $600mn funding appeal to stop Ebola.

“The world can no longer afford to short-change global public health,” Ban said. “The next few weeks will be crucial. The people of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in particular are looking to us for support.”

Ban said that UN agencies were “mobilising in every possible way” with the goal of stopping Ebola in the next six to nine months in affected countries and preventing the disease from spreading further internationally.

The UN was setting up a crisis centre to co-ordinate international efforts to stop the spread of Ebola, Ban said.

Nigeria schools to re-open after Ebola closure

Nigeria’s schools, which were ordered shut until mid-October as a precaution against Ebola, will now re-open later this month after “positive progress” tackling the virus, the government said yesterday.

“We have now agreed that primary and secondary schools, public and private, should re-open and begin formal classes on Monday, September 22, 2014,” education minister Ibrahim Shekarau told reporters.

Students across the country had been due to resume classes on September 15 but Shekarau announced in late August that the summer holidays would be extended to October 13 because of the outbreak.

Eighteen people have so far been confirmed to have Ebola in Nigeria and seven people have died.

Five of the deaths have been in the financial capital, Lagos, and two in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

Shekarau said the decision to bring forward re-opening by three weeks came because of the “positive progress report by the federal minister of health that Nigeria is almost close to totally overcoming the Ebola virus disease epidemic”.

The World Health Organisation warned on Thursday that 60 out of the 255 people under surveillance in Port Harcourt were considered to have had “high-risk or very high-risk exposure” to the virus.

But Nigeria Centre for Disease Control project director Abdulsalami Nasidi said once transmission in Port Harcourt was brought under control, “we are going to be exiting the outbreak in a few weeks”.