Thousands of experimental vaccines have arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where health workers are preparing to use them among patients who have had some contact with people infected with Ebola.

More than 7,500 doses of the vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV, arrived on Monday to an area of the Congo known as the northwestern Equator Province in Congo, where 26 people have died and least 46 more are suspected to have been infected with Ebola. The virus, which is deadly when left untreated, is spread through direct contact with an infected person, causing body aches, bleeding, vomiting, and diarrhea.