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Gavi Commits US$ 50 Million to Bundibugyo Ebolavirus Vaccines and Outbreak Response
Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance reported:
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance today announced it would make up to US$ 50 million available through its First Response Fund (FRF) to support the response to the ongoing Bundibugyo ebolavirus outbreak.
Of the US$50 million investment, which is the highest amount that can be approved by the Gavi Chief Executive Officer without further approvals from the Gavi Board, up to US$ 40 million will be dedicated to accelerating vaccine access while a further US$ 10 million will be directed towards supporting outbreak response needs.
“While we are some way off having a safe and effective vaccine against Bundibugyo virus, we need to act now to ensure that, once one or more vaccine candidates are ready, manufacturers are in a position to start producing doses at scale,” said Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Health Secretary Kennedy to Unveil Efforts to Combat Lyme Disease
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce new efforts on Friday to combat Lyme disease, as he travels around the country for what he’s been calling a “Take Back Your Health” tour.
Kennedy is slated to be joined by state and federal officials at the New Hampshire State House, along with advocates who have worked to raise awareness about the disease, which is caused by a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks.
Lyme disease cases, which have historically been concentrated most heavily in southern New England and coastal Mid-Atlantic states, have proliferated in recent years across the entire Northeast and parts of the Upper Midwest (including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan), according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump Admin Defends Ebola Response
Trump administration officials said Thursday the “best option to expedite” care for Americans exposed to Ebola — amid the outbreak in Congo — is to send them to a newly constructed facility at an air base in Kenya instead of home to the U.S., POLITICO’s Carmen Paun and Cheyenne Haslett report.
The officials’ defense of the decision, which is a break from practice during prior Ebola outbreaks, comes after some doctors, public health activists and foreign service workers protested the decision on Wednesday, saying Americans exposed to Ebola have a right to come home. They argue that the U.S. has more than a dozen of the best facilities in the world to care for people with Ebola and should not deny its citizens, some of whom are responding to the outbreak, lifesaving treatment.
Ebola Outbreak ‘Can Be Stopped,’ WHO Chief Says as He Arrives in Congo
The head of the World Health Organization has arrived in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, to support efforts against an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus, as medical personnel struggle with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in a volatile region.
The World Health Organization said Friday authorities have reported 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths. “To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the airport late Thursday.
“Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community and I am asking communities to protect themselves,” he added.
EPA Delays Reporting Requirements for Health-Harming Chemicals
Federal regulators are giving chemical manufacturers and petroleum refiners more time to provide data on a group of chemicals that have been linked to human health harms as officials consider tighter regulations. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) extended the deadline one year for compliance with the Health and Safety Data Reporting Rule to May 2027 saying the extension is necessary to provide “regulatory certainty.”
The agency said it will use the extension to determine whether to revise the rule, partly due to “legitimate concerns” raised by industry groups regarding the rule’s cost and scope. Passed in 2024, the rule requires industry to send the EPA any unpublished safety and health data that they have on 16 chemicals that the agency is considering more tightly regulating due to concerns about environmental and human health risks.
The chemicals include common plastic additives bisphenol A (BPA) and vinyl chloride, as well as oil refining chemicals benzene and naphthalene. The deadline extension was widely criticized by health and environmental groups who said companies simply have to turn over existing health and safety studies that they already have, and warned that delaying these submissions denies people information about chemicals they are frequently exposed to.
