NewsDesk @bactiman63

Uganda health officials reported six new confirmed cases of Ebola, bringing the total number of people infected to seven. One death has been reported.

Produced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under a very-high magnification, this digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicts a single filamentous Ebola virus particle that had budded from the surface of a VERO cell of the African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line.

The confirmed cases are Sudan ebolavirus. Forty-three contacts have been identified and 10 people suspected to have caught the virus are receiving treatment at the regional referral hospital in Mubende, the district where the disease was confirmed this week.

Ebola Incident Commander, Dr. Henry Kyobe said there is no approved drug or vaccine for the disease.

Current evidence shows that ERVEBO vaccine, which is highly effective against the Zaire ebolavirus, doesn’t provide cross protection against the Sudan ebolavirus.

There are at least six candidate vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus which are in different stages of development. Three of them have Phase1 data (safety and immunogenicity data in humans) and the remaining are in the preclinical evaluation phase.

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“But there are trial drugs using the monoclonal antibody technology. Largely, the treatment is mainly on supportive care. This strain has no vaccine and for now, the plan for the vaccine is not on the table but it is being considered as soon as we have some,” Kyobe said.

He added: “For now we are concentrated on making sure we inform the population about what it is, guiding them on the measures to be able to protect, guiding them to show us where contacts are –identify them to be able to get patients early in care.”