World Health Organization says Congo will start using a second experimental Ebola vaccine, as efforts to stop spiraling outbreak are stalled and Doctors Without Borders criticizes vaccination efforts to date.

200,000 people receive Ebola vaccine in Congo

Since this outbreak was declared on August 2018, more than 200,000 people have received doses of a vaccine me by Merck which will continue to be used in Congo. U.N. health ncy in a statement Monday says second vaccine, me by Johnson & Johnson, will be used from October in areas where Ebola is t actively spreing.

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Separately, Doctors Without Borders seeks an independent committee to man Ebola vaccinations to improve transparency and increase access. medical charity alleges that WHO is “restricting availability of vaccine in field” and limiting eligibility criteria. Deep distrust along with political instability and dely violence has severely undermined efforts by public health authorities in Congo to curb outbreak by tracing and vaccinating those who may have come into contact with infected people.

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A global health emergency

Health experts agree experimental Ebola vaccine has saved multitudes in Congo. But after nearly a year and some 171,000 doses given, epidemic shows few signs of waning. virus has killed more than 1,700 people and has w arrived in region’s largest city, Goma. World Health Organization last week declared outbreak a global health emergency.

During 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which left more than 11,300 people de, health workers could only dream of a vaccine with a 97.5 percent effectiveness rate that could improve odds of survival even in those alrey infected.

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WHO says as many as 90 percents of those eligible for vaccination have accepted it, but that figure only includes those who gave contact tracers eugh information to be included on a list. success rate excludes those who distrusted health workers and fled or those who couldn’t be found in first place.

Health workers have been using what is kwn as a ring vaccination strategy: vaccine is first given to those who were in close contact with a sick person. n a second so-called ring is created by giving vaccine to those who were in contact with those people.

Because of difficulties in making that strategy work, some people didn’t get vaccinated until y h alrey been infected with virus, and y developed Ebola anyway. That increased doubts about vaccine in communities where public health campaigns led by outsiders alrey were viewed with suspicion and hostility.

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“ rumors were if you got vaccinated you would die,” said Liboke Kakule Muhingi, a 43-year-old farmer in Mangina, where epidemic began last August.