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Ebola Vaccination Begins Today in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The new law prohibits the use of state or federal money to fund the programs that offer people clean needles in exchange for used ones. Photo: Flickr Creative Commons
The new law prohibits the use of state or federal money to fund the programs that offer people clean needles in exchange for used ones. Photo: Flickr Creative Commons

Vaccination against Ebola has begun today in the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to stop the spread of the highly contagious, deadly disease. University of Florida’s Dr. Ira Longini helped test the only known vaccine. He says health workers and contacts of people infected with the disease will be the first ones to be vaccinated.  If the disease spreads quickly in a big city:

“We’d switch over to a mass vaccination campaign and we’d simply do heavy vaccination as a whole through large parts of the city.”

One hundred percent of the people who received the vaccine during clinical trials did not contract the disease.

If you'd like to listen to the full story, please click on the clip above.

 

Danielle Prieur is WMFE's education reporter.