Ivory Coast has on Monday said it is set to roll out Ebola vaccines following the country’s first confirmed case since 1994, nearly 30 years. Germain Mahan Sehi, a health official disclosed that about 5,000 doses of the Ebola vaccine have been received from Guinea, adding that people who had contact with the victim including his relatives will be given priority during the vaccination.
The case was recorded in an 18-year-old Guinean woman who had arrived in the country on Wednesday from Labe in Guinea.
According to Aljazeera, the World Health Organization (WHO) said genetic sequencing of a virus sample would determine whether the case was linked to a recent flare-up of Ebola in neighbouring Guinea.
The fact that it had occurred in a region of more than four million people was of “immense concern”, it said.
The health body noted that combating the deadly Ebola virus outbreaks involves painstaking contact tracing and isolating people who have come in contact with patients.
However, the strenous technique has recently been supplemented by a vaccine to fight the epidemic.
