VACCINE RESEARCH

No vaccine or specific treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is behind the current outbreak.

But the head of the CDC Africa said on Thursday that a vaccine should be ready by the end of the year.

On Saturday, the WHO said its experts had considered several potential vaccines that were “promising enough” to warrant evaluation in clinical trials.

“In the meantime, our priority is to stop transmission with tools that we have used for decades of Ebola responses, which include disease surveillance, rapid testing and diagnosis, contact tracing, isolation and care for patients, infection prevention and control, community engagement, and safe and dignified burials,” it added in a statement.

North and South Kivu provinces, that have also recorded Ebola cases in the outbreak, have been plagued by near continuous violence for three decades.

Much of the affected regions are controlled by the Rwanda-backed armed group M23 which has been battling government forces.

Millions of people have fled the fighting and are living in displacement camps with poor hygiene conditions.

Nearly a million of those displaced are in Ituri province, where the prospect of the epidemic spreading throughout the camps has sparked alarm.

“If Ebola comes, we’ll be wiped out as we’re packed like sardines,” Dorcas Mapenzi said at the Kingonze camp on the outskirts of Bunia.