00:00All right, the top news that's coming in right now is from Congo.
00:04I hear that Congo is witnessing a steep rise in the number of Ebola cases.
00:08Cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have crossed 320 mark.
00:12Congo reportedly has, in fact, confirmed and reported more than 1,000 suspected cases of the virus.
00:19It's the Bundibugyo virus, the species of Ebola that was confirmed weeks after the outbreak quietly began.
00:24The disease outbreak has killed 42 people in Congo, one person in neighboring Uganda as well.
00:30Congolese government is making concerted efforts to deliver vital supplies to the most affected areas, protect health care workers and
00:36test patients.
00:37World Health Organization is appreciating Congo's response to the fast-spreading Ebola outbreak, urging government leadership and community-led efforts
00:45in stopping the virus.
00:50Every vaccine development effort is unique, and you can encounter challenges in identifying the dose or if your antigen doesn't
00:59work the way you think it's working.
01:00The weight of the access challenges here have more to do with the last-mile considerations and getting vaccine to
01:06the people who need it.
01:08I mean, even the West African Ebola epidemic was a regional crisis.
01:14It was not a global crisis.
01:17So, clearly, this has caught the attention of the world right now.
01:20Nearly 250 people suspected to have died, more than 1,100 infected, with the strain in the DRC and neighboring
01:26Uganda.
01:27India Today's Sneha Murdani spoke with former Deputy Director of the WHO, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, on the race to develop
01:34a vaccine against it.
01:37And joining us right now to talk about the worrying Ebola situation in parts of Africa is Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.
01:44She's an elected fellow of the Royal Society and also former Deputy Director of World Health Organization, a well-known
01:52scientist all over the world.
01:53I'm going to thank you for joining in and for weighing in on the current situation as far as Ebola
01:59is concerned.
02:00We all woke up to good news of vaccines being developed, ma'am, in this direction.
02:05Three new vaccines are being developed to tackle the rare strain of the Ebola virus, which, of course, is giving
02:12everyone a headache at this point in time now.
02:14How do you look at this development of money now being set aside for this vaccine work, which is getting
02:20done?
02:21Yes. So, this Bundibugyo strain of or species of Ebola virus is quite different antigenically from the Zaire strain,
02:32for which there was development of both vaccines as well as monoclonal antibodies for treatment.
02:41Now, in this particular case, there has not been any R&D to develop either diagnostics or vaccines or treatments.
02:51So, this is a very big issue now because this outbreak is spreading very fast in DRC and Uganda.
02:58So, now we know of at least three groups of scientists from different parts of the world who had been
03:06working on a platform
03:07on which they are now going to try to develop the vaccine against Bundibugyo.
03:13So, one of them is an mRNA vaccine that Moderna is going to work on.
03:17Another one is the recombinant VSV vaccine that the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
03:25They have a platform with the VSV, which is another viral vector.
03:31And then you have the CHADOX strain, which was developed by the Oxford group of researchers
03:37that was used for developing the Covishield vaccine for COVID that was done in collaboration with the Serum Institute of
03:45India.
03:46So, this is where the partnership between the Oxford group and the Serum Institute of India continues to be strong.
03:52And therefore, the Serum Institute has the capacity to actually very quickly manufacture under GMP conditions,
04:00a new vaccine, which will first have to be tested, of course, for safety and efficacy before it can be
04:07rolled out.
04:07So, the timeline here is, well, you know, for COVID, it took one year.
04:13Or maybe for this, it would take less, but it would be a minimum of six to nine months from
04:18now
04:18to actually go through all those stages and get regulatory approval for testing in the population.
04:25What about India?
04:26India has, of course, sent out relief material for Africa, something that has been communicated by the government of India.
04:32But how challenging the situation could get in India, if at all we were to have cases?
04:38What's the situation like?
04:39How big a risk is this for a country like ours?
04:44See, for India, it's not an immediate threat.
04:47As the WHO has clarified, this is not an international threat at a high level
04:53because Ebola doesn't spread like other airborne viruses, for example.
04:59But it is a very high threat to those countries in that region which have been impacted.
05:04And they're going to suffer enormously.
05:07They're already suffering, that population.
05:11And because of the impact on travel and trade and so on,
05:14there's going to be a big economic impact as well, you know, even after this.
05:19So right now, the focus really needs to be for all countries to extend support
05:24to DRC and to Uganda through Africa CDC, through the WHO
05:30to ensure that this outbreak can be brought under control as quickly as possible.
05:35And it is possible to do.
05:37It has been done before.
05:39Right.
05:40So now this is the time to keep a watch, observe and ensure that at least it's restrained in those
05:46areas.
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