When the Ebola epidemic struck West Africa in 2014, drugmakers had been working on a vaccine for the virus for 10 years. But it took more than a year to get it to affected areas.

“That vaccine was shown to be 100 percent effective, suggesting that much of the epidemic could have been prevented,” according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which formed in 2017 to try to prevent the Ebola failure from happening again. The coronavirus outbreak is the first major test of the organization’s resources.

Three more people have the coronavirus in Iran, and two others have died, the country’s official news agency said Thursday. The new patients lived in Qom, Iran, and do not appear to have had contact with Chinese nationals. All schools and universities in the city closed in an attempt to contain the spread of the illness. The virus has infected more than 75,000 people around the world, mostly in China.

Students, tourists, and workers from China cannot visit Russia until the coronavirus outbreak subsides, government officials in Moscow announced on Tuesday. They had already halted most air and rail traffic to China and will still issue some visas for Chinese nationals with official business. So far, Russia has had three confirmed cases of the coronavirus: two Chinese citizens in Russia who were treated and released and a Russian national infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship now quarantined in Japan.

The hospital director in hard-hit Wuhan, China, succumbed to the coronavirus, the city’s health bureau said Tuesday. Liu Zhiming is one of six other health workers in the country who have died from the disease. Chinese officials said it would designate them as state martyrs.

NIGERIA: The killing of 18-year-old Catholic seminarian Michael Nnadi “is a defining moment for Christians and Christianity in Nigeria,” said Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah at a funeral Mass in Kaduna. Kukah blamed the Buhari government for failing to secure northern states and other areas from Muslim terror groups:

TAIWAN: The U.S. State Department blocked Taiwan from joining 27 other nations in a U.S.-led International Religious Freedom Alliance. But according to Taiwanese officials, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback did issue an invitation for the nation to join as an observer.

Two charter flights with more than 300 Americans from a quarantined Japanese cruise ship landed at military bases in California and Texas on Monday. Fourteen of the passengers have already tested positive for the coronavirus. The tourists from the Diamond Princess cruise ship will remain under quarantine at the bases for 14 days.