Overview
- This week the International Coordinating Group approved an immediate release of 70,000 Ervebo doses to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with 50,000 for frontline and health workers and 20,000 reserved for a Phase 3 clinical trial.
- The DRC’s Bundibugyo outbreak, declared on May 15, has grown into the country’s deadliest on record with about 5,021 reported cases and 2,325 deaths and more than 160 health worker infections that include roughly 40 deaths.
- It is unknown whether Ervebo protects humans against the Bundibugyo virus; laboratory and animal studies show possible cross-protection, which is the premise for the trial designed to provide the first human effectiveness data.
- Ongoing armed conflict and attacks in eastern DRC are blocking medical teams, closing clinics, displacing people, and making contact tracing and safe burials difficult, which the WHO and Africa CDC say is undermining containment efforts.
- The vaccine release comes from the ICG-managed stockpile that Gavi funds and that WHO, IFRC, MSF and UNICEF operate, building on prior allocations since 2021 and signaling that trial results could change how future Bundibugyo outbreaks are managed.