VIDEO: Should we be worried about the latest Ebola outbreak?

SARAH FERGUSON:  An outbreak of Ebola in Central Africa has been declared an emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, that's below pandemic level. 

There have been around 250 suspected cases and 80 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. 

Jane Halton previously led the Federal Health Department. She's now the chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and joins me from Geneva. Jane Halton, welcome. 

JANE HALTON, COALITION FOR EPIDEMIC PREPAREDNESS INNOVATIONS CHAIR:  Good evening, Sarah. 

SARAH FERGUSON: Information is obviously coming in even as we speak. How wide could the outbreak already be? Usually, health worker deaths suggest a more developed outbreak than the numbers suggest. 

JANE HALTON:  That's right and we actually think this one is, in common with other outbreaks we've had, a bit like an iceberg. 

So what we see at the top of this and you've already gone through the numbers as best we know them at the moment but what we know is there's a much larger and disguised volume of cases, and we actually believe deaths as well, that we haven't yet got full visibility of. 

So it's already pretty wide, and it's certainly very worrying. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  And what happens if this particular strain of Ebola takes hold in the cities in Central Africa? 

JANE HALTON:  Well, of course, any very congested urban environment is the worst kind of place these outbreaks can get into, because it's very difficult to actually provide the sort of, the protections that we need not just for healthcare workers, but also for ordinary people going around their daily businesses. 

People live very close to each other. This particular virus spreads through bodily fluids and, whilst it's not like respiratory viruses - and everyone's familiar with that, when we had COVID – but this is still a very easy environment in which this kind of virus can spread. 

And because this particular variant isn't something we currently have got a vaccine for, even treatments we're not quite sure what to do, that means, if it spreads in urban environments, we have an enormous problem on our hands. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  So, this may not be a question you can answer, but how long would it take to develop either vaccines or specific therapeutics for this strain? 

JANE HALTON:  Well, it won't surprise you to know that here in Geneva, that is exactly what we're talking about, and what everyone is talking about. 

We believe there are a couple of what we call pre–clinical candidates, one of which we have an interest in. And so, there are already steps being taken. In fact, I've been in a meeting about this already today to make sure we start the manufacturing work of some of these candidates whilst we actually do the other scientific and investigation work. In other words, we don't waste any time. 

Now I do want to make the point – and this is always the case with the work we do – we never use something without doing all the proper testing. But if we wait, if we wait we will delay anything that we have that's successful being available. And that's what we're doing. And it's the same with therapeutics. 

So people are all over these issues are working really, really hard to see how we can speed up to provide people with the kind of help that they need at this very difficult time. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  There have been various outbreaks of Ebola over the years. They have been contained. Why not this time? 

JANE HALTON:  Yes. Well, again, think about this, when we first discovered Ebola – and it's probably about maybe 35–40 years ago now – there were no vaccines and nobody had any idea about treatments. 

We now know what we need to do in terms of infection control. But, absent a vaccine and because this particular variant, the Bundibugyo variant is not one that has happened to have outbreaks very often, so it's been lower down the research priority and that's why everyone is now scrambling. 

And containment takes effort. It takes healthcare workers. It takes the kinds of materials for infection control. And all of that is being mobilised as we speak. 

But these are difficult environments – remote, very traditional people, and very, very hard to get to. 

SARAH FERGUSON: Talking about though, you mentioned them earlier, but the healthcare staff in Congo now and over the border in Uganda, do they have access to the kind of protective clothing they need to deal with people with this type of disease? 

JANE HALTON:  Well, yes, they do have access, whether they've got enough access is something that people are focused on. The African Centre for Disease Control – Africa CDC – is working with the governments in those countries, plus all other international partners to make sure that we mobilise exactly those supplies. 

Of course, healthcare workers are right on the front line, and we already know that we've got cases in the healthcare worker population coming from those very early cases before this was identified. 

So that, we can scramble to deliver and do that pretty quickly. It's the longer–term therapeutics and vaccines that we're really going to have to focus on for the next little while. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  And just briefly in the meantime, will there be any consideration of limiting travel from those parts of Central Africa to the rest of the world? 

JANE HALTON:  Well, this is something which every country thinks about. We encourage all countries to be transparent so people can understand those things. And obviously managing things like symptoms and managing sure information is widely available. 

There aren't travel restrictions being discussed at the moment. If the outbreak gets very much wider, obviously those conversations will happen but certainly not right at this moment. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  Jane Halton, thank you very much indeed for talking to us this evening. I appreciate it. 

JANE HALTON: Pleasure.