By NewsDesk  @bactiman63

As of Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported nine confirmed and probable Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) cases, including five deaths. While no confirmed cases of Ebola have been recorded outside of the country, the latest outbreak in N’Zerekore prefecture is close to porous borders with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire.

“A delivery of 11,000 Ebola vaccines arrived in Guinea on Monday & 24 hours later a vaccination team was in N’Zerekore starting the rollout. So far, 225 high-risk contacts & frontline health workers have been vaccinated”, according to a WHO African Region tweet.

As Ebola immunization scales up in Guinea, the country’s neighboring nations are on high alert, urgently preparing to detect, isolate and manage any cases and quickly stamp out potential cross-border outbreaks.

All six nations bordering Guinea are finalizing their national preparedness and readiness operational plans in line with a WHO readiness assessment tool. The overall state of readiness in the six countries is nearly 66% which is still lower than the benchmark of 80%.

It’s not just COVID-19: Outbreaks of Lassa fever, plague and monkeypox

In the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province there have been eight confirmed cases of Ebola and four deaths in the latest outbreak that was declared on 7 February. Persistent insecurity, tragically illustrated by the recent death of Italian Ambassador Luca Attanasio in the region, is hampering efforts to detect cases and trace the contacts of those infected. More than 650 people have been vaccinated so far. About 8000 vaccine doses were still available in the country at the end of the 11th Ebola outbreak. Another 4320 doses are expected to arrive early next week.