Guinea has launched a vaccination campaign in Conakry and Gbeke in the southeastern NZerekore administrative region, the countrys health ministry has said. The 11,500 doses of vaccines that arrived Monday in Conakry were distributed among the various localities which had reported positive cases or contacts of patients, said a statement released by the health ministry on Tuesday. In the NZerekore region, 3,500 doses of vaccines will be sent to immunize confirmed cases, contacts and their families in rural areas in the southeast of the country. In Conakry, the campaign was launched in Dubreka, located more than 50 km north of Conakry, where 11 of the 31 contacts registered had received their doses of vaccines. In the coming days, more than 495 contacts identified in the outbreak of Ebola will receive vaccines delivered to Guinea by the World Health Organization. At present, four vaccination teams have been deployed in the field, three of which are working in the forest region and one in Conakry. The vaccination campaign will help contain the Ebola virus in targeted areas and limit the spread of the virus to regions not yet affected, Minister of Health Remy Lamah said, adding that more than 70 percent of Ebola patients will be cured after receiving the injection of the vaccines. Official data shows that Guinea had confirmed 17 Ebola cases so far, six of whom have died. On Feb. 14, the Ministry of Health confirmed that there was an Ebola outbreak in the NZerekore province and reported seven confirmed cases, including three deaths. From 2013 to 2016, three countries in West Africa including Guinea were hit by an Ebola outbreak that claimed more than 11,000 lives.
