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A special plane carrying a shipment of Ebola vaccines has landed in Guinea, allowing a vaccination campaign to begin later on Tuesday.
A dust storm in the Sahara forced the aircraft to divert its course on Sunday when it was diverted to Senegal.
Five people have recently died in Guinea from Ebola, the first cases in the region in five years.
Between 2013 and 2016, more than 11,000 people died in the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which began in Guinea.
In response to that epidemic, vaccines were developed, which have since been used successfully to combat outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Who gets vaccinated against Ebola?
The goal is to vaccinate those who have been in contact with Ebola patients, as well as front-line healthcare workers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the 11,000 doses, which reached the capital Conakry, would be brought to the area near the southeastern city of Nzérékoré within hours to begin inoculations.
Doses provided by WHO are not enough for entire communities, so decisions must be made about who is most at risk, reports BBC Africa correspondent Catherine Byaruhanga.
Guinea’s forest region is the epicenter of this outbreak, as it was in 2013 when the disease spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, it adds.
The country officially declared it was dealing with an epidemic on February 14, but WHO hopes that a major outbreak can be prevented with this vaccination campaign.
Source: BBC
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