The Kenya Humanitarian Fund has allocated more than $2 million to strengthen Ebola preparedness and response efforts in the country.
The fund, managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), will support government-led interventions, including enhanced border surveillance and training for rapid response teams.
Daniela De Almeida, Associate Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, disclosed this at a news conference on Tuesday at UN headquarters in New York.
She said the funding would also support preparedness along high-risk refugee and travel routes linked to the Kakuma refugee complex in northwestern Kenya.
It would further provide emergency health and infection prevention kits, alongside public information campaigns on Ebola prevention and early detection.
“As of Oct. 20, nine confirmed Ebola cases, including two fatalities, have been reported,” De Almeida said.
She added that there was no evidence of community transmission, although contact tracing had identified 134 additional people who might have been exposed and placed them under quarantine.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to evaluate vaccine candidates against Ebola.
Dr Meg Doherty, Director of WHO’s Department of Science for Health, announced this to journalists in Geneva, speaking from Bunia in eastern DRC.
She said the TUMAINI trial platform, launched on Friday, would evaluate several vaccine candidates within one research framework using the ring vaccination approach.
According to her, the strategy involves vaccinating contacts of people with confirmed Ebola infections to assess vaccine effectiveness.
“Tumaini actually means ‘hope’ in Swahili, and is giving us some hope,” Doherty said.
The first vaccine being evaluated is Ervebo, which has proved effective against Ebola caused by the Zaire virus.
However, its protective effect against the Bundibugyo strain remains unknown.
Doherty, who attended the trial’s launch, said four people were vaccinated at the event.
“It was moving to see this trial begin, just as it has been deeply sad to see the effect of this outbreak on communities,” she said.
She recalled living and working in DRC nearly 40 years ago, describing the country’s continuing outbreaks and humanitarian crises as heartbreaking.
Last week, WHO convened technical advisory groups to assess evidence on two vaccines specifically developed against the Bundibugyo virus.
They are ChAdOx1, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and mRNA-1469, developed by US pharmaceutical company Moderna.
Doherty said recommendations from the advisory groups would soon be published.
Meanwhile, preparations are underway to enrol eligible participants through the ring vaccination approach.
According to her, two vaccination rings are already in place, with several others being prepared.
“Community members are already walking into the site asking to be enrolled, highlighting the intense need for an efficacious vaccine,” she said.
Doherty recalled that WHO and its partners used the same approach in Guinea during the West African Ebola outbreak about a decade ago.
According to her, the strategy helped establish the efficacy of the Ervebo vaccine.
“Today, scientists are building on that experience to seek answers about the Bundibugyo virus,” she added.
The trial is led by Congolese authorities and integrated into the ongoing outbreak response.
It is managed by the National Public Health and Biomedical Research Institute, known by its French acronym, IRNRB.
Doherty said results were expected to take several months to emerge.
“But already, having this trial in place is an important step toward gathering scientific data that will help policymakers reach decisions on vaccine use,” she said.
She expressed hope that the findings would help protect people during the current outbreak and future emergencies.
Doherty added that other vaccines were under development and could join the trial platform if initial studies showed promising results.
