The campaign, the medical charity said on Monday, was launched in collaboration with the country’s Health Ministry to protect women and girls of reproductive age, who are at greatest risk of death from the deadly disease.
Fatality can be as high as 40 per cent among pregnant women, and there is no cure, meaning that many of those at advanced stages of illness do not survive.
Since April 2023, 501 cases of hepatitis E have reportedly been treated at the MSF hospital in Old Fangak, Jonglei State, and 21 people – mainly women – have died.
The vaccination campaign, according to the medical charity, is the first to be conducted during the acute stages of an active outbreak and in such a remote and isolated part of South Sudan – is intended to prevent further loss of life.
The vaccine was developed in 2012 and has been approved for use in emergency settings by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2015. However, despite this, it has only ever been used once before. This was in 2022 when MSF carried out a world-first by using the vaccine in a mass vaccination campaign in the Bentiu internally displaced persons camp – also in South Sudan.
Hepatitis E is a waterborne disease that can be fatal and that around 20 million people become infected every year, and of these, three million people experience symptoms that require treatment, MSF’s Head of Mission in South Sudan, Mamman Mustapha said in the statement it issued on Monday.
“However, not everyone is able to access treatment in good time – especially in countries with limited numbers of health facilities like South Sudan,” he said, adding “In such locations, even if people do eventually manage to get to a hospital, it is often too late. There is no cure for hepatitis E and sadly, 70,000 people die from the disease each year. This is why the vaccine is so important– it can save lives.”
At that time, the outbreak of the deadly disease had been ongoing for more than two years. The vaccine was used to provide future protection to over 25,000 people. This latest campaign in Fangak County builds on the experience in Bentiu but is being administered in a vastly different context, the medical charity said.
“In addition to the vaccination campaign itself, MSF is carrying out case management and referrals at its hospital, conducting community awareness campaigns and epidemiological surveillance,” the statement added.
MSF said it faces challenged of limited availability of the vaccine and its high cost.
The medical charity, however, appealed to the international and local health and humanitarian organizations to take action to improve the water and sanitation conditions in Old Fangak through awareness raising, implementing proper sewage and sanitation facilities such as toilets and waste disposal systems, and drilling boreholes to ensure the availability of safe drinking water.
