'The vaccine for the previous Ebola virus is not effective'

Ebola suspicion ruled out, as expert says ‘very low’ chance current strain will reach Israel

However, Health Ministry is taking precautions as there are no vaccines yet for Bundibugyo virus; UN health agency reports 896 confirmed cases and 232 suspected deaths

The two patients in Israeli hospitals who were suspected of having the Ebola Bundibugyo virus, a virulent strain of Ebola, tested negative for the disease, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

However, Prof. Jacob Strahilevitz, head of the Clinical Microbiology  andInfectious Diseases Department at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, told The Times of Israel that the five hospitals designated to treat potential patients are taking “all the necessary measures so that we can be prepared.”

The two suspected patients were hospitalized at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. They had both returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with active Ebola transmission alongside its neighbor Uganda.

Hadassah Medical Center, Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, and Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital are also prepared to take in patients. The Health Ministry has provided the hospitals with personal protective equipment to “secure the safety of the medical staff who are taking care of these patients,” Strahilevitz said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there have been 896 confirmed cases and 232 deaths as of June 19. WHO has declared it a global health emergency.

There has never been a confirmed case of Ebola in Israel, according to the Health Ministry. There were several suspected cases that turned out to be negative during a previous outbreak in 2014.

Strahilevitz said the chance of the current strain spreading to Israel “remains very low.”

The Ebola virus

The Ebola disease is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates.

Strahilevitz said the virus is transmitted from wild animals such as fruit bats and monkeys to humans who inhabit the same areas.

According to the World Health Organization, the first Ebola disease outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests.

From 2014 to 2016, a large outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa killed 11,000 people.

During that outbreak, which spread worldwide, “there was a huge investment of resources in finding drugs, and finding immunizations,” Strahilevitz said. “There is now a vaccine against Ebola, and several drugs that can be effective against it.”

This vaccine was so effective that Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Congolese professor who first discovered the virus in 1976, declared in 2021 that the virus “is defeated.”

But Ebola Bundibugyo virus is a different strain, Strahilevitz said.

The effects of the virus are compounded in the DRC, a country in the middle of a civil war, where medical resources are diminishing.

Funding to USAID has stopped, Strahilevitz said, and while Doctors Without Borders, WHO and UNICEF have stepped in, “there are fewer drugs and less infrastructure right now.”

“This outbreak was identified only after several months, and now there are thousands of people who have been affected by this virus,” he said. “Hence, the vaccine for the previous virus is not effective, the drugs are ineffective, and the only way to stop it is by strict isolation precautions.”

The good news, he said, is that the mortality rate is lower than during the outbreak 10 years ago.

The last outbreak had a 60 percent mortality rate. This outbreak is “somewhere between 30% and 50%.”

Ebola virus symptoms

The first phase of the Ebola disease is a flu-like illness, including fever, muscle aches and joint pain, Strahilevitz said.

Then, because of a mechanism that has not yet been fully identified, the virus spreads throughout the body.

One symptom is vomiting and diarrhea. The other is bleeding in a patient’s internal organs, including the lungs. “People succumb to dehydration because of the diarrhea and bleeding in the internal organs,” Strahilevitz said.

Since there is no known therapy for the virus, medical staff focus on supportive treatments, such as rehydration and nutrition, to improve the symptoms.

Transmission of the virus

When people are infected, they secrete a viable virus from blood and other secretions, Strahilevitz explained.

They then become the source of subsequent infections and transmissions.

During the outbreak ten years ago, Strahilevitz said it was the local practice to take care of deceased bodies in people’s homes.

“They washed the dead and kept them for several days before burial,” Strahilevitz said. “During this time of taking care of the deceased, many people became infected, so there was a need for an urgent change in burial practices, which they did.”

The disease can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions, or through objects and surfaces contaminated by them.

“It can be transmitted if someone shakes someone’s hand and then touches their own eye,” he said.

Once a person is infected, the disease could be in someone’s body for up to 21 days until symptoms appear, Strahilevitz said. People can become infected while in the endemic area, and then, when they return to their original country, they become sick there and infect others.

“That’s why Israeli health officials are taking precautions to put people with suspected Ebola in special wards of hospitals with physical isolation and contact precautions,” he said.

The ministry has reiterated its call to the public to avoid nonessential travel to regions with active Ebola transmission, primarily the DRC and Uganda. In the event of travel to these regions, it is recommended to consult in advance at a travel clinic, in accordance with the guidelines on the Health Ministry website.

He estimates that there are dozens of Israelis in infected areas in Africa.

Once they board flights from Africa to Israel, they are given Health Ministry information stressing that if they develop symptoms, they should immediately inform their physician.

It’s more likely that travelers coming from Africa will have other infections, from simple respiratory infections to malaria or typhoid, Strahilevitz said.

Nevertheless, if they are infected with Ebola, they could have already transmitted it to their relatives.

“Some people might be hesitant to tell medical authorities because they don’t want to be put in isolation in a hospital,” he said. “But we need to know this so we can treat them, their families, and loved ones. People need to understand this so we can save lives.”