By Lisa Schnirring
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) health ministry reported eight more lab-confirmed Ebola cases over the past 4 days, along with another probable infection, all from areas that have already reported illnesses.
In other outbreak developments, outbreak coordinators held a public meeting in Beni to ease tensions following recent community protests against the response, and health teams closed and disinfected a clinic in Beni that recently reported three cases. Another health ministry report said two patients who were given the experimental treatment mAb114 have recovered from their infections.
Also, a group of experts wrote in a Stat commentary that pregnant and lactating women should be included in vaccination efforts.
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Push for vaccinating pregnant women
In a commentary in Stat today, three US health experts wrote that the decision by outbreak responders not to immunize pregnant and lactating women with the experimental Ebola vaccine unfairly deprives them of protection against the deadly disease.
The authors are Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH, founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Ruth Karron, MD, director the Center for Immunization Research and the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative, and Carleigh Krubiner, PhD, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. All are part of the Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics, and New Technologies (PREVENT) international working group.
Read the full article here.