DRC Beats Ebola Again

The 11th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is officially over, the WHO declared today.

The 6-month outbreak in Equateur Province's rainforests and crowded cities included 119 confirmed cases and 55 deaths.
 
The logistical successes in delivering 40,000 Ebola vaccines offers lessons for distributing COVID-19 vaccines, notes WHO Africa chief Matshidiso Moeti.
 
Crucial to the effort was an innovative cold chain storage to keep vaccines at temperatures as low as -80 degrees C. Using ARKTEK freezers, vaccinators could protect supplies in the field for up to a week, allowing responders to vaccinate communities without electricity.
 
But the effort is nothing without the vaccinators themselves.

The Quote: “I’m satisfied to leave Mbandaka knowing that we defeated Ebola by breaking the transmission thanks to effective vaccination,” said vaccinator Lydia Muadi Bukasa.