Kinshasa — “Getting the Ebola vaccine has given me a deep sense of safety and can permit me to pay attention totally on my work,” says Chrysostome Kavusa Mwenderwa, a well being care employee at Kalunguta Referral Hospital in Beni, within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Kavusa, 42, is amongst 18 748 frontline and well being care employees in 12 well being zones of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province who had been vaccinated towards Ebola between June and September 2023, a part of a drive by World Well being Group (WHO) in assist of nations to assist enhance epidemic preparedness, and save lives.
“Well being care employees are chargeable for stopping illness, responding to outbreaks, and mitigating threat in communities. However the nature of their work places them at elevated threat for lethal infectious illnesses resembling Ebola, so preventive vaccination is essential wherever potential,” says Dr Boureima Hama Sambo, WHO Consultant within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Together with supporting preparedness efforts, Ebola vaccination additionally helps strengthen well being methods, paving the best way for grownup vaccination programmes, Sambo provides.
“Now we have leveraged skilled associations of physicians, nurses, midwifes and laboratory technicians, in addition to of Ebola survivors, together with training and spiritual our bodies and humanitarian companions, to encourage prophylactic vaccination for frontline and well being care employees,” says Dr Nanou Yanga Mukadi, Cholera Vaccination Focal Level and EPI Ebola Vaccination Officer.
“Planning begins at grassroots stage, with assist from the intermediate and central ranges and from companions, together with WHO. One essential facet to focus on is awareness-raising. As well as, in-process and end-of-process monitoring is carried out to make sure that the targets are met,” Mukadi provides.
Together with Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau and Uganda have additionally begun preventive vaccination efforts. WHO urges different international locations at excessive threat to additionally take into account preventive Ebola vaccination.
Ebola is a extreme and sometimes deadly sickness, with dying charges of 70% to 90% when untreated. The 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa devastated communities and well being companies alike. WHO is encouraging international locations to prioritize the usage of the vaccine as a strong public well being device to guard well being care employees and different frontline service suppliers at excessive threat of publicity.
In 2023, WHO made a complete of 111 497 doses of the ERVEBO® vaccine from the worldwide stockpile out there to high-risk African international locations, with the intention of ramping up nation preparedness for future outbreaks. WHO additionally supported the federal government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to plan and coordinate preventive Ebola vaccination actions at operational and strategic ranges.
Well being care employee Kavusa Mwenderwa explains the risk from the Ebola virus: “Ebola is transmitted by contact with an contaminated affected person’s blood or bodily fluids, and even by contact with clothes or mattress linen contaminated with bodily fluids. Given the character of our work, the danger to us as well being employees is excessive.”
Throughout early phases of an Ebola virus outbreak, well being care employees are sometimes first affected, which might result in pointless deaths, employees shortages, and transmission to different sufferers.
His colleague, Remacle Kasereka Kitutu, 40, agrees: “The significance of getting vaccinated can’t be overemphasized. If we as well being employees are vaccinated towards Ebola, we are able to work far more effectively and successfully, whereas persevering with to take all of the advisable precautions to keep away from an infection.”
