The Democratic Republic of Congo has kicked off Ebola vaccinations to stem an outbreak in the northwest city of Mbandaka, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Two people are known to have died so far in the city of over one million inhabitants where people live in close proximity to the road, water, and air links to the capital Kinshasa.
The first fatality happened on April 21, and the second occurred on Tuesday, marking the 14th Ebola epidemic in the central African country.
The WHO said in a statement that 200 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine had been shipped to Mbandaka from the eastern city of Goma, with more due in the coming days.
It also stated that 233 contacts have been found and are being monitored.
Three vaccination teams have arrived on the scene and will focus on reaching all high-risk individuals.
"We can immediately reverse the trajectory of this epidemic for the better with effective vaccinations on hand and the expertise of health professionals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Ebola response," WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement.
The Ebola virus, which was identified along the Ebola River in northern Congo in 1976, has a natural reservoir in the Congo's tropical jungles.
There have been 13 prior Ebola outbreaks in the nation, including one in the east in 2018-2020 that killed about 2,300 people, the second-worst toll in the disease's history.
The most recent occurred in December in the east and resulted in the deaths of six people. In 2018, and again in 2020, Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, was hit by outbreaks.
Genetic testing has shown that the current outbreak was a new "spillover event", meaning it was transmitted from infected animals rather than linked to previous events.