Ebola Is Back—and Vaccines Don’t Work Against It

One of the candidates furthest along is the single-dose ChAd3 Ebola Sudan vaccine, which is being developed by the Sabin Vaccine Institute. The institute is going to conduct a clinical trial in the current outbreak to see how well the vaccine works.

There are only 100 doses left. Health officials plan to give the vaccine to people who have been exposed to the disease. The exact testing protocol they will use for the vaccine's clinical trial is still being worked out.

Having limited supplies is a challenge, but they are hoping for more production from the vaccine institute now that there is more demand. Bruce Kirenga, a senior respiratory physician at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences, says that even if the number of vaccines used is small, they will still give useful data.

The minimum number of people you need to involve to see whether a vaccine or medicine has an effect is referred to as power calculation. A well-designed trial in an emergency situation in need of a drastic change of course doesn't need to involve a lot of people.

The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford is being sent to help in the outbreak. Uganda is relying on non-pharmaceutical interventions for now because vaccine trials won't start for another couple of weeks.

As of October 16, contact tracing had traced more than 1,500 contacts who were close to known cases. A third of these are no longer being followed after being traced for 21 days.

Daniel Kyabayinze is the director of public health at Uganda's Ministry of Health. He says it's a good sign. The limits of the outbreak are still unknown.

The Ministry of Health said on October 12 that a man had died of the disease in a hospital in the capital city of Uganda. TheMubende and Kassanda districts entered a three week lockdown to try to stop the spread of the virus. Bars, nightclubs, and places of worship have been closed, and only cargo trucks are allowed into the districts.

Trained teams are being sent to bury the dead because of the high risk of infections. They are helping with the contact tracing by taking the details of everyone the deceased had contact with. The Ministry of Health is training health workers to deal with the disease, and communities are taking part in the control effort.