Success of targeted vaccination in curbing Ebola outbreaks in DRC, paving the way for future strategies against similar infectious diseases. A new study1 in the New England Journal of Medicine has highlighted the effectiveness of ring vaccination in containing Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Ring vaccination is a public health strategy where close contacts of an exposed person, such as family and friends, are vaccinated to prevent disease spread and has potential for controlling other diseases with similar transmission patterns. The study evaluated ring vaccination as a critical tool in controlling the Ebola outbreak and the approach, targeting close contacts of confirmed cases and their contacts, proved pivotal in rapid, localized containment.
The study shows that ring vaccination significantly reduced Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases starting 10 days post-vaccination. Most infections occurred within the first nine days before the vaccine’s protective effects fully took hold. By day 10, case numbers dropped sharply, suggesting the vaccine’s efficacy. People vaccinated within eight days of the index case’s symptom onset faced a substantially lower infection risk compared to those vaccinated later.