5 things to know about the Ebola vaccination - Interview Micaela Serafini (ENG)

5 questions asked to Micaela Serafini, Medical Director in MSF, about the Ebola vaccination.

MSF234358

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5 things to know about the Ebola vaccination - Interview Micaela Serafini (FR)

Subt. French

5 things to know about the Ebola vaccination - Interview Micaela Serafini (DE)

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5 things to know about the Ebola vaccination - Interview Micaela Serafini (INTER)

EBOLA EQUATEUR PROVINCE, MAY 2018

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Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF234358

Date taken / Date Recorded 28/05/2018 12:00 AM

Country Democratic Republic of Congo

Commissioning section MSF-SWITZERLAND

Photographer / videographer / producer Louise Annaud

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★★ (C)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 2m10s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 232.64 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist 5 things to know about the Ebola vaccination

1. What do we need to know about the Ebola vaccine?

The Ebola vaccine continues to be an investigational vaccine. It means that today, there is no licensing of this vaccine so we need to use it with a little bit more precautions that if a vaccine would have been registered.

Micaela Serafini – Medical Director, MSF

2. What are the other activities in order to stem the spread?

The first one has to do with knowledge: so how can we take the knowledge of what Ebola is and how it is transmitted to the community. There is also the treatment of these people. The other pillar is obviously the detection and contact tracing: the early we detect someone that has symptoms, the early we can give them the treatment that they need, so they can avoid the transmission.

3. How will the vaccination be implemented in DRC?

It's not a mass vaccination, we are not going to vaccinate all. The ones who are going to be vaccinated are the people that were in contact with this positive case, the health workers, they are one of the most vulnerable groups, and the contacts of contacts. That is what we call the ring strategy.

4. Is the vaccination voluntary?

These communities might not have seen or might not understand what a vaccine is and what the vaccine protects from. We need to bring the right information to try to make them ease their decision.

5. What are the challenges to doing this vaccination?

I think there are mainly 3 challenges, one has to do with how do we engage the community into this how do we make them understand. The second challenge is obviously logistics: this is a vaccine that needs to be in very low temperatures, what we call “cold chain” and logistic in very remote areas that is very difficult to achieve. And I think the third one is doing this ring vaccination and at study conditions.

Keywords

Democratic Republic of Congo