Vaccines could make big Ebola outbreaks a thing of the past

Abstract

The era of large and deadly Ebola outbreaks may soon be over, thanks in part to vaccines and improvements in health-care delivery. After lengthy Ebola virus disease outbreaks claimed thousands of lives in both West Africa in 2014–16 and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2018–20, two outbreaks this year in those same areas have been managed quickly, leading to few infections and even fewer deaths. These latest outbreaks, in the North Kivu Province of the DRC and in the Nzérékoré Prefecture in southern Guinea, are among the first since local and international health authorities approved two Ebola vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. Soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreaks in February, Johnson & Johnson and Merck pledged thousands of doses to the two countries, as well as to Guinea’s neighbor Sierra Leone. People in these countries had participated in