A vaccinated health worker is among the 5 new Ebola cases recorded since late last week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which raise the outbreak total to 3,416, including 2,237 deaths. A total of 394 suspected cases are still under investigation, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) online Ebola dashboard.
Yesterday, the DRC's Ebola technical committee (CMRE) said one case recorded over the weekend involved a vaccinated health worker from Beni, raising the number of health professionals infected in this outbreak to 167 (5% of all confirmed and probable cases).
The CMRE also said that vaccination uptake in Butembo and Katwa has been successful but vaccination efforts in the Aloya and Bingo health areas in Mabalako in North Kivu have yielded low participation. Most current cases have been traced to a transmission chain from Aloya health area.
"New confirmed cases continue to be reported in Beni, Mabalako and Butembo in North Kivu Province in areas that have not seen new cases for several weeks," the WHO's African regional office said in an update. "Resistance to response activities continues, particularly in North Kivu Province, which continues to hamper response efforts, with resulting resurgence of transmission."
To date, 270,138 people have been vaccine with Merck's rVSV-ZEBOV, and 6,317 have been vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson's Ebola vaccine.
