Tag Archives: Vaccinations

Congo starts vaccinating health workers against Ebola

A Congolese health worker checks the temperature of a woman before the launch of vaccination campaign against the deadly Ebola virus near Mangina village, near the town of Beni, in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 8, 2018. REUTERS/Samuel Mambo

By Fiston Mahamba

MANGINA, Congo (Reuters) – Congolese officials and the World Health Organization began vaccinating health workers against the deadly Ebola virus on Wednesday, to try to halt an outbreak in Congo’s volatile east.

A Reuters witness on a visit to Mangina, the village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where the epidemic was declared, saw health workers in protective suits administering the injections.

So far 43 people are believed to have been infected in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, including 36 who have died, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

“We are putting all our energy and all our expertise to quickly control this epidemic,” Health Minister Oly Ilunga told journalists at the start of the vaccination campaign.

“All the measures of prevention are in place. The vaccination is the last phase. It will enable us to break the chain of transmission of this epidemic.”

More than 900 contacts of those infected have been identified for monitoring, although security is an issue in the area where militia groups operate, WHO said.

The disease, which causes fever, vomiting, and diarrhea, is spread through direct contact with body fluids.

“Around 40 health workers are expected to be vaccinated today; by end of the week, once all the necessary steps are in place, vaccination of community contacts and their contacts will commence,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

WHO has said that analysis of genetic sequencing showed it was a separate outbreak from the one 2,500 km (1,500 miles) away in the northwest that ended less than two weeks ago after killing 33 people — but the same Zaire strain.

This is Congo’s 10th Ebola outbreak since the virus was first identified near northern Congo’s Ebola river.

“There is a huge fear among the local population,” Kaswera Mathumo, a medical worker at a clinic in Mangina, where the vaccinations were taking place, said.

The experimental vaccine being used, which is manufactured by Merck, proved successful during its first wide-scale usage against the previous outbreak in Equateur Province.

More than 3,000 doses remain in stock in the capital Kinshasa, allowing authorities to deploy them quickly to affected areas.

But they face security challenges in eastern Congo, a region bubbling with conflicts over land and ethnicity stoked by decades of on-off war.

Local authorities announced on Tuesday that 14 bodies had been discovered in the town of Tubameme, about 40 km (25 miles) northeast of the epicenter of the outbreak in the town of Mangina, suspected to have been killed by a militia group.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Tim Cocks and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Cholera outbreak spreading in Yemen

Boy lies on a bed at a hospital where he is receiving treatment for cholera amid confirmation by the UNICEF and the World Health Organization of an outbreak of the epidemic in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen

SANAA (Reuters) – More cases of cholera have been registered in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Tuesday.

The United Nations first reported the cholera outbreak on Friday.

“The number of cases has increased from five to 11 people,” WHO official Omar Saleh told a news conference in Sanaa.

Medics were working to curb the epidemic, which has yet to claim any deaths or spread beyond the capital, he said.

Thousands of families fleeing Yemen’s war are living in camps outside Sanaa, where conditions could lead to the spread of cholera, including through contaminated food or water.

Much of the country’s infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, has been destroyed by the 18-month old conflict between a Saudi Arabia-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi group which controls much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa.

Saleh said that more than half of Yemen’s health centers had ceased to operate since the start of the war after not receiving funds from the health ministry.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced millions, the United Nations estimates.

(Reporting by Mohamed Ghobari, Writing by Tom Finn, editing by Sami Aboudi and Angus MacSwan)

Indonesia begins re-vaccinating victims of fake drug ring

A child who received fake medication from a drug-making ring is revaccinated by government health care workers at a clinic in East Jakarta, Indonesia

By Randy Fabi and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia on Monday began re-vaccinating nearly 200 children who received fake versions of imported inoculations from a drug-counterfeiting ring broken up last month after operating for more than a decade.

President Joko Widodo urged calm as public uproar intensified over revelations that health officials knew about the syndicate producing the fake vaccines for several years but did little to stop it.

The scandal has exposed major weaknesses in the oversight of the health sector, which has expanded rapidly alongside a growing middle class.

No illnesses or deaths have been directly linked to the fake vaccines, officials have said.

“I want to ask people to stay calm because this incident happened over such a long time,” Widodo told reporters at a Jakarta clinic offering re-vaccinations.

“We need more time to investigate so we can get the real data of people who suffered from these fake vaccines.”

The ring used stolen vials and forged labels to make the fake medicine look like imported vaccines produced by GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. State-owned Bio Farma produces nearly all vaccines available in Indonesia.

At least 28 health care facilities throughout the country, including Jakarta and the tourist resort island of Bali, were suspected of buying fake booster vaccines for hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

Health officials said the sham vaccines contained the antibiotic gentamicin and saline solution and were not harmful and made up only 1 percent of total vaccines in Indonesia.

Investigators are trying to determine how widely the fake drugs were distributed.

Police have arrested nearly two dozen people, including drugmakers, pharmacists, doctors and nurses.

Police have identified at least 197 children for re-vaccination, but many more are expected to be confirmed.

Health Minister Nila Moeloek told Reuters officials knew fake vaccines were being distributed in 2013 but she declined to say why action was not taken sooner. The president has ordered an overhaul of the food and drug monitoring agency.

One mother, Rina Herlina Sari, told Reuters she no longer trusted private clinics.

“The government should revoke their permits,” she said.

Reuters reporters visited the clinic accused of giving Sari’s daughter, and other children, fake vaccines, and found it operating. Its main midwife had been arrested but other staff were working.

“The overall facility is a health facility with other areas of care so we have to allow it to continue,” Agung Setya, director of criminal police investigations, told Reuters.

“It is up to the health ministry to decide whether to shut it down.”

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)

Congo almost runs out of yellow fever vaccine amid epidemic

Residents read newspapers with reports on Yellow Fever

By Aaron Ross

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo has almost run out of yellow fever vaccine in Kinshasa, in the same week that the government declared an epidemic of the disease in the packed capital and two other provinces.

Some local people have complained they were denied immunization due to the shortage, despite queueing for a shot. More supplies have been promised, but health officials in the impoverished country say they have to choose between the high cost of flying them in, or a long wait for shipment by sea.

The mosquito-borne hemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people which has poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed owing to pour drainage.

Health minister Felix Kabange said on Monday that 67 cases had been confirmed in Kinshasa, Kongo Central and Kwango provinces and that over 1,000 more suspected cases are being monitored. Five people have died from the disease.

The government and international health organizations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4.

But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a small number of doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa’s central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighboring Congo Republic, health officials said.

The agency is charging $35 for the doses it administers, a hefty sum in a country whose gross national income per person is estimated by the World Bank at $380 a year.

Eugene Kabambi, the World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman in Congo, said that the International Coordinating Group on vaccine provision has promised Congo more than a million more doses.

“That requires either a cargo flight, in which case it would come very quickly but cost a lot, or if it’s by boat, it could take a few weeks,” he told Reuters.

The Coordinating Group brings together the WHO and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies plus the medical charity Médecins sans Frontières.

The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunize people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas, experts warn.

Almost 18 million doses have been distributed for emergency vaccination campaigns so far in the three African countries.

QUEUES FOR VACCINES

Congo has extensive experience of dealing with outbreaks of tropical diseases and the Ebola virus was first identified in the central African country.

It earned plaudits in 2014 for quickly containing a local Ebola outbreak that killed 49 people in the country. By contrast an Ebola epidemic killed more than 11,300 as it swept through West Africa from 2013.

Of the cases confirmed in the latest yellow fever outbreak, seven were locally transmitted in Congo. Another 58 were imported from Angola, where it began, and two came from remote forested areas not linked to the current outbreak.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, body aches and nausea, although most people recover.

In Kinshasa’s Ndjili commune, a maze of narrow alleys and one of the health zones in the city targeted for vaccination in late May, many residents were unable to receive an injection before stocks ran out.

“Everyone started coming, even from other districts. Near the end we realized that the vaccine was insufficient,” said Murphy Nzuzi, a doctor at a dimly-lit health center in Ndjili with only a few small treatment rooms. He added that fights had broken out among people waiting in line.

In a nearby market where trash collected in a small stream, residents said that some people had received vaccination papers while waiting in line but never got a shot.

“When you present yourself, they give you the card that gives you access to the vaccine, but then there wasn’t enough vaccine for everyone,” said local resident Mama Mavungu.

The current method for making vaccines, using chicken eggs, takes a year. Health authorities are considering using a fifth of the standard dose of vaccine – enough to immunize temporarily but not to give lifelong immunity – to maximize its availability, but no final decision has been made.

(Editing by Tim Cocks and David Stamp)