LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - A global stockpile of Ebola

vaccines can be used to protect frontline health workers in

high-risk countries routinely, rather than just as an emergency

measure during outbreaks, international vaccine group Gavi said

on Thursday.

A stockpile of half-a-million Ebola vaccine doses was

established by Gavi and other global health partners in 2019 for

use in outbreaks of haemorrhagic fever, which has an average

fatality rate of roughly 60%. Around 11,000 people died in a

2014-16 outbreak in West Africa, the largest ever.

But while highly deadly, Ebola outbreaks are relatively

rare. Around 208,000 doses of the stockpiled Ervebo vaccine,

made by Merck ( MRK ), were set to expire this year if unused,

although some countries have already had doses shipped to them

for preventative campaigns, including Democratic Republic of

Congo and Uganda. Now there are around 120,000 doses close to

expiry.

Gavi said it will fund preventative use of Ervebo routinely

for high-risk countries, including transport and vaccination

costs, after the World Health Organization (WHO) last month

recommended using it this way. The vaccines are also still

available for use in outbreaks.

The WHO also backed preventative use for high-risk groups of

the other Ebola vaccine, Zabdeno, made by Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ )

, with a booster dose, Mvabea, made by Bavarian Nordic ( BVNKF )

. This vaccine is not currently held in the stockpile.

Both vaccines target the Ebola Zaire strain of the virus, rather

than the Sudan strain that caused an outbreak in Uganda in 2022.

Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar said the stockpile had

already helped cut down Ebola cases and deaths during outbreaks

and could now protect those at highest risk from this "terrible

disease that can lay waste to whole communities".

Gavi also said that it would support lower-income countries

to add a number of other vaccines in their routine programmes.

These included introducing a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine

at birth, a new vaccine protecting against five strains of

meningococcal meningitis, and the use of the rabies vaccine for

protection post-exposure. The plans, including for preventative

Ebola vaccination, were all signed off by Gavi's board before

COVID-19 but delayed by the pandemic and other factors.