https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/ebola-relief
"It has not been a good few weeks for global health. Just as the hantavirus
situation stabilized, with no deaths reported since May 2, news came of the
third-largest Ebola outbreak in history. So far, the World Health Organization
(WHO) suspects that more than 200 people in eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) have died from the virus.
For years, the world’s first Ebola vaccines—which were developed, approved, and
stockpiled around 2019–2021—worked so well that I wondered in this newsletter
whether the era of large outbreaks was over. As one commenter put it, that take
has “aged like milk.” I hadn’t counted on the perfect storm that’s going on
right now: a rare strain, Bundibugyo, for which no approved vaccine or
treatment exists, spreading in a conflict zone with an already deficient
healthcare infrastructure that was further gutted by last year’s funding cuts
to aid.
So, yes, a lot of factors are working against the speedy containment of the
latest scourge. Health officials are further behind the eight ball because the
virus had gone undetected for weeks. They do have one thing going for them,
though: experience. The
New York Times reports that Congo’s health minister,
Dr. Samuel-Roger Kamba, “emphasized” in a press conference “that the country
had been able to contain 15 previous outbreaks of Ebola without vaccines or
treatments.” (Another plus: While Ebola generally has a high fatality rate, the
Bundibugyo strain appears to be less deadly than the more common Zaire one.)
The international community has already leapt into action, to turn, as best it
can, the situation into a testing ground for Bundibugyo-specific medicines.
Alongside the WHO, scientists are working “day and night” to launch clinical
trials for two experimental treatments. One is the broad-acting antiviral
remdesivir; the other, a two-antibody mix developed for Ebola viruses—and
funded by American federal grants for scientific research—called MBP134. It’s
as yet unclear whether MBP134 is effective in humans, but it works great in
monkeys. Its maker, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, has already shipped over some doses
for high-risk individuals.
A few vaccines for Bundibugyo are also in the pipelines of various
manufacturers, though none have been tested on humans, and it will take months
to prepare them for use. Meanwhile, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention (Africa CDC) is considering trialing the vaccine that targets the
Zaire strain; whether it will act against Bundibugyo is 50/50.
But vaccines or no vaccines, the world is still better prepared than it used to
be, Dr. Amanda Rojek, a health emergencies professor at Oxford’s Pandemic
Sciences Institute, told
CNN. About a decade ago, more than 10,000 people
died in western Africa in the largest-ever Ebola outbreak. Compared to then, we
now have “ready surveillance systems, faster diagnostics, established ways of
running clinical trials, and stronger international coordination.” The Africa
CDC, for instance, has been catching some criticism for its delayed
announcement of the current crisis, but that organization didn’t even exist
until 2016.
It will likely take months for officials to put a lid on the spread, so we can
expect that the outbreak will continue to grow before it slows. To say that
many aspects of the situation are challenging would be an understatement, but
those forces are not the only ones in play. And people outside of the regional
area should not be especially alarmed; Ebola spreads through close contact. The
WHO has set the global risk as “low.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
