Thread by @HelenBranswell

1. Short #Ebola thread.
The outbreak in Uganda is getting quite large. Very concerning situation. But there's been some extraordinary good news. Merck, which makes the first licensed Ebola Zaire vaccine, has found it has 100,000 bulk doses of Ebola Sudan vaccine.

2. @sciencecohen reported on this amazing situation. Merck relinquished the IP for the #Ebola Sudan vaccine several years ago, but while it still held it the company made bulk vaccine as a hedge against an Ebola Sudan outbreak. It's still viable. science.org/content/articl…

3. @WHO is already planning a clinical trial of candidate vaccines which is supposed to start soon. The Merck vaccine, which stands a good chance of being effective, will surely be added to the mix. I wrote about the clinical trial late last month. #Ebola statnews.com/2022/09/29/ebo…

4. Getting a good handle on how large this #Ebola outbreak is has been ridiculously hard. Uganda is not being transparent about numbers. They are not including probable cases in their counts, even though they should be. health.go.ug/ebola/

5. Uganda says there've been 75 confirmed #Ebola cases & 28 deaths. But there are 20 probable cases that need to be added to those tallies.
And that 75 number is out of date. Suffice to say there have been over 100 cases to date and 48 deaths.

6. Most alarmingly, there have been quite a few cases in Kampala, the capital. #Ebola in cities is really bad news. A chain of transmission spanning more than a dozen cases started there when an infected man fled to Kampala.

7. If you want to know more about the work that led to Merck's #Ebola Zaire vaccine — and the Ebola Sudan vaccine that will be tested in Uganda — I wrote about in early 2020. statnews.com/2020/01/07/ins…