Ebola Vaccine: Information about Ervebo® | Clinicians | Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease) | CDC.
A safe and effective vaccine is an important tool to protect frontline workers and prevent the introduction and spread of Ebola in the United States.
Ebola virus is a zoonotic pathogen that causes severe hemorrhagic fever in humans, known as Ebola virus disease (EVD). There are four species of Ebola virus that have been known to cause disease in humans. Of these, species Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) is the most lethal, with case fatality rates of 70–90% if left untreated. EBOV is responsible for the majority of recorded EVD outbreaks. This includes the two largest EVD outbreaks in history, the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak and the 2018 outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where over 32,000 people were infected, and more than 13,600 deaths were reported.
Importation of EVD to the United States from an epidemic region through an infected traveler is a recognized risk with the potential for spread to other people. During the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, 11 people were treated for EVD in the U.S., and two of them died. Nine of these cases were imported into the U.S. Two were domestic healthcare workers who were infected while caring for the first travel-associated EVD case diagnosed in the U.S. Both healthcare workers recovered.