LONDON/KINSHASA, May 20, 2018 (News Wires) – An experimental Ebola vaccine being deployed in an outbreak in Congo has conquered some major scientific hurdles in giving high protection, but it now faces extreme real-world tests including heat, humidity, language barriers and lack of roads. Because it is not yet licensed, the Merck vaccine has been offered to Congo under a "compassionate use" protocol agreed to by national and international health and ethics authorities. This means fully informed, signed consent is needed from every person who wants the shot. And in the current Ebola outbreak, that makes logistical, cultural and language barriers the ultimate challenges, global health specialists say. The hurdles illustrate how hard it can be to move from laboratory to real life, especially in remote communities with no functioning health systems. The Congo outbreak is a chance to reality-test a vaccine against a disease epidemic that can't be replicated in controlled environments. "This is going to need a highly sophisticated operation in one of the most difficult places on Earth," said Peter Salama, the World Health Organization's deputy director general for emergency preparedness and response. "It's very hot and very humid, and we're talking about hundreds of kilometers of densely forested areas." The shot is designed for use in a "ring vaccination." When a new Ebola case is diagnosed, all people who might have been in recent contact with that person are traced and vaccinated. The supplies of the vaccine so far will be enough to vaccinate 50 rings of 150 people, according to the WHO. It said that as of May 15, 527 contacts of Ebola cases and suspected cases had been identified and were being followed up. Health workers will need to use translators for several local languages and explain the vaccine to leaders from different communities, Salama said. Limited communications, health facilities and electricity, as well as the need to keep the vaccine in a "cold chain" at minus 80 to 60 degrees Celsius (minus 110 to 75 Fahrenheit) will also present challenges. If any of these elements fails, the vaccine's potential to protect 100 percent of those immunized will go unrealized. "These are make-or-break issues," said Salama, who visited Congo a week ago. "There's a lot of complex logistics and social science here." Results of a trial using the ring vaccination technique with the Merck shot, which is known as VSV-EBOV, in Guinea in West Africa in 2015 showed 100 percent protection in those vaccinated immediately. The government launched the vaccination campaign in the northwest on Saturday, targeting around 600 people, including medical staffers, known to have been in direct or indirect contact with those already taken ill. Health experts working to contain the Congo outbreak, which was first reported on May 8, say a cold chain will be in place to get the vaccines from Congo's capital, Kinshasa, to the affected areas within a few days. Congo said Saturday that three new Ebola cases had been confirmed in the northwest, taking the number of suspected infections to 43. In Geneva, the WHO put the death toll at 25 but said 45 cases have been recorded, 14 of which have been confirmed by lab tests. The organization said Friday that the Ebola outbreak did not warrant being labeled an emergency of "international concern," adding that Kinshasa's response, along with its own, had been "rapid and comprehensive." But Jeremy Farrar, a specialist in infectious diseases and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said the epidemic now has "all the features of something that could turn really nasty." "You can't overrespond in this scenario," he said. "But the vaccine must be seen in the context of an overarching public health response. Critically that means early diagnosis, early isolation, safe burials and understanding the social context. The vaccine can only be a part of the solution." Experts also caution that acting too hastily could jeopardize the potential success of a vaccine deployment. Even though the vaccine has yet to get a license, the emergency response teams say its safety and efficacy data is strong. And despite lingering suspicions in some of the more remote parts of Africa of western medicines, experts anticipate widespread public acceptance. Congo's health minister, Oly Ilunga, signalled on Thursday that his government was fully behind the shot's use. "The vaccine will help us save lives in the Equateur province, in the DRC and in neighboring countries. The vaccine allows us to limit the virus, so we must use it," he said. Merck and the GAVI vaccine alliance have said a stockpile of more than 300,000 doses of the shot is available for emergency use in an epidemic. Salama and Serafini said one tricky task may be managing a scenario where larger groups of people not identified as high-risk contacts of a Ebola case might demand the vaccine for themselves or their family. "We want to make sure we are engaging whole communities so that the broader community understands what we are doing and why," said Salama. "That is particularly important when you're not targeting everyone, because naturally people will ask: ‘How come you're vaccinating that person but not me?'
