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Bloomberg
The US will begin redirecting travellers from Uganda to five airports to screen for Ebola, as the East African country grapples with an outbreak of a strain of virus for which there is no approved vaccine.
The notice is not a travel ban or suspension on those coming from Uganda, but is being put in place out of an abundance of caution, according to a senior administration official. Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised Uganda’s travel alert level, urging travellers to avoid non-essential travel to the country.
US health officials believe the current level of risk is low for Ebola spreading in the US, but also plan to alert clinicians and hospitals to be on the lookout for possible cases. A call with thousands of US health-care providers is also planned for October 11.
The Biden administration is preparing for a surge in the cases in Uganda, and believes that the current reported number represents a significant
undercount.
The first case in the outbreak caused by the Sudan virus, one of four pathogens known to cause Ebola virus disease in humans, was found in Uganda in September.
Since then, Uganda has reported 63 confirmed and probable cases, with nearly half of the patients succumbing to the illness. The Zaire ebolavirus — commonly referred to as Ebola virus — caused more recent outbreaks in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, spurring rapid development and approval of a vaccine. The vaccine, called Ervebo, is made by Merck & Co.
However, that vaccine does not work against the Sudan version causing the outbreak in Uganda. Several shots targeting the strain are in various stages of development, and the World Health Organisation said Wednesday that two of the vaccines could begin a human trial in Uganda as soon as this month. The proposed trials are undergoing ethics and regulatory approvals from the Ugandan government, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
One of the vaccines up for review in Uganda was developed by GSK Plc, which transferred its rights to the nonprofit Sabin Vaccine Institute in 2019. That same year, the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority awarded Sabin a $128 million contract to develop the product. It has shown promise in monkey studies, as well as smaller clinical trials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center. There are currently only 100 doses of the vaccine available, but Sabin is working with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a public-private vaccine partnership, to find a fill-finish manufacturer to make more shots.