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, a 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 October 20, nine confirmed Ebola cases, including two fatalities, have been reported,” Ms 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 to evaluate vaccine candidates against Ebola.
 
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,” Ms 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.
 
Ms 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.
 
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.
 
(NAN)