Key Points
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WHO begins Ebola vaccinations in Congo outbreak.
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Congo health officials coordinate with global partners.
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Violence threatens efforts to contain the epidemic.
As Ebola cases spread across the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organization has started an emergency vaccination campaign. This has raised fears of a bigger outbreak.
The program, which was announced on Monday in Kinshasa, will start by focusing on health workers, first responders, and people who have been in contact with confirmed patients. Authorities say that more than 2,000 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine are being sent to North Kivu and Ituri, where new cases of the disease have been reported in the past few weeks.
WHO starts giving Ebola shots in Congo
Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said, “The start of this vaccination drive is very important for stopping the spread of the disease.” “Communities need to work together to keep the weakest safe.”
According to a report by  Africa-news, at least 15 people have been confirmed to have Ebola and eight people have died since early September, according to the Ministry of Health in Congo. Roger Kamba, the health minister, said that the government is working with partners from other countries to stop epidemics from happening again. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Congo and an expert on Ebola, said that field teams are tracing hundreds of contacts and setting up isolation wards in areas where the disease is most common.
The outbreak has people worried in the eastern provinces
The outbreak has shaken communities that are still recovering from the second-deadliest Ebola epidemic in the world, which killed more than 2,200 people between 2018 and 2020. This most recent flare-up comes at a time when violence is still going on in eastern Congo, where armed groups are still forcing families to leave their homes and making it hard for aid workers to get to people in need.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which is helping treatment centers, said that insecurity could slow down the response. Anne-Marie Moukou, the coordinator for MSF, said, “If vaccination teams can’t get to remote villages safely, the virus will keep spreading.”
Dr. Mike Ryan, who is in charge of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said from Geneva that “time is critical.” He said that border areas with Uganda and Rwanda are especially at risk for spillover cases.
A quick push to stop Ebola
WHO officials said they are working with the African Union, UNICEF, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve logistics, train health workers, and keep an eye on people moving across borders. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUSCO, has also promised to help protect medical convoys and make sure vaccination teams can get through safely.
Constant Ndima, the governor of North Kivu, has asked people to stay calm and work together. “We’ve beaten Ebola before, and we can do it again if we work together,” he said.
Experts in public health say that waiting too long to act could make things worse, using the 2014 West African outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people as an example. For now, officials say that vaccination is still the best way to stop the disease from spreading.
