U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is taking the top government infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, and other high-level U.S. health officials with him to the Democratic Republic of Congo to get a ground view of the ongoing Ebola outbreak.
The U.S. officials will also visit Rwanda and Uganda while in Africa, but the specific travel timeline is being kept secret for security reasons.
The purpose of the trip is multifaceted but is mostly aimed at sending a signal that the U.S. takes the Ebola outbreak very seriously, Fauci told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview.
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci in protective gear at the National Institutes of Health |
Fauci is the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency he has led since 1984. He has dealt with a number of Ebola outbreaks during his tenure, including the 2014 to 2016 outbreak in West Africa, when he personally treated patients infected with the highly deadly virus at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's campus in Bethesda, Md.
Azar said the trip to Congo would not only be an opportunity to learn about the situation and give U.S. officials a chance to meet with their international counterparts and talk to American public health workers on the ground; it also would reiterate the U.S. commitment to bringing the Ebola outbreak to an end.
"The DRC is facing the most complex Ebola outbreak we've ever seen," Azar told reporters during a Sept. 10 briefing.
Unfortunately, it shows no signs of slowing, he said.
"Ending the outbreak will take continued commitments and persistence from all the partners," Azar said.
More than 3,000 people in Congo have been infected during the outbreak, with over 2,000 dying of the highly contagious disease.
The current outbreak in the country started on Aug. 1, 2018. On July 17, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after a person in Goma — a city of about 2 million people that borders Rwanda — was diagnosed with the virus.
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Healthcare workers in Congo are facing the particularly difficult situation of trying to address the Ebola outbreak in the middle of active armed conflict in a densely populated area.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has 248 permanently positioned personnel in Congo and neighboring bordering countries to respond to the current outbreak, the agency's director, Robert Redfield, told reporters.
"We are committed to doing what it takes to bring this outbreak to an end," Redfield said. The trip to Congo will be his third during the current outbreak.
The CDC chief acknowledged his agency is nearing the end of the supplemental funding it received from Congress to address Ebola in the 2014 to 2016 outbreak, noting that money will be gone by the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30.
"We are in the process of looking at where the availability of additional funds will come," Redfield said in response to a question from S&P Global Market Intelligence. "Currently, we are using some internal funds we have at CDC to continue our outbreak response."
'Remarkable' clinical research
Azar emphasized that U.S. public health workers have not only been caring for Ebola patients and vaccinating residents in Congo, but are also involved in carrying out clinical research on investigative medicines — a feat he called "remarkable," given that work is occurring in an unstable conflict zone.
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Fauci noted that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s REGN-EB3 and the National Institutes of Health's mAb114 are being tested in an extension study after preliminary results reported in August from the PALM trial indicated the drugs demonstrated 70% survival in Ebola patients who received the products.
"This was a randomized trial done under extraordinary conditions of security difficulties," he said.
In an interview, Fauci noted that ongoing clinical work continues on three Ebola vaccines, including the product from Merck & Co. Inc., which has shown to be 97% effective and is being used in Congo.
Johnson & Johnson is also continuing its development of an Ebola vaccine, which the NIAID has been involved in testing, Fauci said.
Even though GlaxoSmithKline PLC in August turned over the development of its experimental Ebola vaccine — a product it developed with the NIAID — to the nonprofit Sabin Vaccine Institute, it "doesn't mean that vaccine is now out of play," he said.
"The vaccine will very likely continue to be developed," Fauci said.
Not having a major drug company behind the development "doesn't necessarily mean it will slow it down," Fauci added. "This is still a player in the Ebola vaccine situation."


CDC Director Robert Redfield
HHS Secretary Alex Azar