Three new vaccines are being developed to combat a rare strain of the Ebola virus that has caused the deaths of approximately 250 people.
elchi reports that the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which is conducting one of the vaccine trials, has revealed the risk of the current epidemic becoming the worst in history. Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company Moderna are also continuing vaccine research against the “Bundibugyo” strain of the virus. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is funding the research, emphasized that this is a race against time.
The number of suspected cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has exceeded one thousand, and nine confirmed cases have been recorded in neighboring Uganda.
There are fears that the epidemic, which emerged in a conflict zone and is spreading due to inadequate healthcare infrastructure, could reach the scale of the largest Ebola epidemic in history, which caused the deaths of more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. IAVI President Dr. Mark Feinberg stated that the situation faces the threat of being at least as serious as it was then, or even worse, and therefore the development of vaccines and other preventive measures is a priority. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also stated that the situation is extremely worrying and that they have never seen so many infection cases in such a short period before.
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