Ebola Is Back—and Vaccines Don’t Work Against It

Something of a tradition now for ebola coverage to spike right before the midterm elections.

Public health officials are racing to contain an outbreak in Uganda. It’s an urgent warning to the rest of the world. THE OUTBREAK BEGAN on September 15. A 24-year-old man, suffering from a high fever and convulsions, was admitted to Mubende Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda. He had bleeding in his eyes and had been passing blood-stained vomit and diarrhea. The man died on September 19. The next day, laboratory tests confirmed the worst fears of those caring for him: Ebola was back.

And this outbreak is different. Ebola is a disease of multitudes. For the most common species of the virus, successful vaccines have already been developed. But for others, no vaccine exists. To the dismay of health officials in Uganda, the version of the virus found in the body at Mubende was from the Sudan species, for which there is no vaccine.

Other Ebola deaths have also been reported in the region. Six people from the man’s family, three adults and three children, also died between September 11 and 15. The Uganda Ministry of Health dispatched a rapid response team to the affected villages in Mubende district to do a verbal autopsy—collecting information on the likely cause of death from local people. The risk of infection from conducting a physical autopsy would be too high.

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