GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Thursday that the Ebola-hit Democratic Republic of Congo has received 70,000 doses of a vaccine approved for treating the virus, but not the strain spreading in the country.
The doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which has proved safe and efficacious against the Zaire strain of Ebola virus, were released Monday by the International Coordination Group for Vaccine Provision for trials and limited use in the response to the deadly outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, the WHO said in a statement.
A WHO post on X said, "The Ervebo vaccine is licensed and recommended for use in outbreaks of Ebola virus (previously known as Zaire ebolavirus) disease."
It added that the current allocation includes 20,000 doses for a Phase 3 clinical trial to understand the impact of the vaccine on the Bundibugyo virus, and 50,000 doses for frontline health workers in line with the current Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) recommendations.
Congolese officials said a week ago that the Ebola outbreak in the African country killed 2,011 people out of 4,381 confirmed cases of the virus.
The latest toll puts it close behind the DRC's deadliest Ebola outbreak from 2018 to 2020 when nearly 2,300 people died out of 3,500 recorded cases.
The Ebola outbreak, which has hit the DRC's conflict-plagued eastern and northeastern regions, was declared on May 15 but is thought to have already been spreading for several weeks.
It is the DRC's 17th surge of the highly contagious disease and is already considered the largest in the country's history "and could well become the largest outbreak ever", said Sania Nishtar, chief executive of the Gavi global vaccine alliance.
The case fatality rate of the current outbreak is estimated by Congolese health authorities to be 45.9%.
Last Friday, World Health Organization (WHO) vaccine experts recommended a full-scale human trial of the only existing approved Ebola vaccine to see if it offered cross-protection against the strain of Ebola currently spreading in the DRC, against which no specific vaccine currently exists.
The Ervebo vaccine proved safe and efficacious against the more common Zaire strain of Ebola virus, and WHO experts said that early data, notably from animal trials, showed it may also give some protection against the rare Bundibugyo strain exploding in the DRC.