The U.N. mission chief has said the victory against Ebola is “within our reach.” The World Health Organization said vaccination tests will begin within weeks in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
There are two vaccine candidates from GlaxoSmithKline and another vaccine from the teamwork by NewLink Genetics and Merck that started clinical testing in the fall. A vaccine candidate from Johnson & Johnson and Bavarian Nordic has reached human testing stage. Tests of the vaccines developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck have been conducted on volunteers in a variety of countries, including Mali, Canada, Gabon, Switzerland, Germany, Britain, and the United States.
The World Health Organization has released its most recent update on the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
The report focuses on the three countries most affected by the virus: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. Of the three, Sierra Leone has seen the most cases both cumulatively and within the past 21 days with 979 cases reported.
While the worst seems to be behind Liberia, the nature of the virus means that further and widespread outbreak is possible over a very short period of time. The region is among the poorest and least educated in the world, so sanitation and healthy treatment conditions are hard to come by. In September of 2014, the United Nations’ senior leadership said that the Ebola outbreak could be contained within “six to nine months,” but only if a massive global response is implemented.
Temporary hospitals, treatment facilities, and sanitized housing for health workers have been set up in affected regions, but there’s a need for more aid. Additional portable medical facilities, medical supplies, and specialized aid workers are needed in Sierra Leone and Liberia specifically with the intent to mobilize in more regions should the Ebola virus spread to neighboring countries.
The Ebola virus has infected over 20,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea as of December 28th, 2014, but these numbers tend to be understated. The death toll attributed to the Ebola virus is about 7,900. Neighboring Senegal and Mali are preparing for an outbreak in those countries, but the number of confirmed cases in those countries total fewer than double digits.
So far, the spread of Ebola to Europe and the U.S. remains very low, with only one confirmed death in the U.S. In the past 21 days, however, there have been no confirmed cases of the virus in the country.
To find out more information on the Ebola virus, visit the World Health Organization and donate here.
