The World Health Organization has warned it could take up to nine months before a vaccine against the Bundibugyo species of Ebola is ready, as the death toll from the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda continues to climb.

Two candidate vaccines against Bundibugyo are under development but neither has yet entered clinical trials, WHO advisor Dr Vasee Moorthy told reporters on Wednesday.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there have been 600 suspected cases of Ebola and 139 suspected deaths, with the numbers expected to rise given delays in detection. Speaking to journalists in Geneva, he said 51 cases have been laboratory-confirmed in DR Congo — where the first case was reported — and two in neighbouring Uganda. Both Ugandan cases involved travellers from DR Congo, one of whom has since died.

The WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Sunday, but the agency’s emergency committee agreed after meeting on Tuesday that the situation was “not a pandemic emergency.” Tedros said WHO assessed the risk as high at the national and regional levels and low at the global level.

The confirmed cases in DR Congo are concentrated in the eastern Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak, and in North Kivu. Healthcare workers are among the dead. Médecins Sans Frontières emergency programme manager Trish Newport told AFP that facilities were reporting they were “full of suspect cases” and lacked space, while personal protective equipment was still arriving in inadequate quantities.

The UK government has announced up to £20 million in support, to be spent on frontline health workers, improved infection control and disease surveillance.

The first known case was a nurse in Ituri’s provincial capital Bunia who developed symptoms and died on 24 April. The body was repatriated to Mongwalu, one of two gold-mining towns where most cases have been reported.

The nine-month vaccine timeline is a critical gap in outbreak containment capacity. The pre-pandemic Ebola Zaire vaccine (Ervebo) does not provide reliable cross-protection against Bundibugyo. Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry has activated a five-point preparedness plan covering airport surveillance, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Medical Research Institute, classifying the country as low-risk under WHO criteria.

Earlier WHO and DR Congo health-ministry data placed the death toll at around 120 deaths on 19 May.

Source: Ada Derana.