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A study in the journal Science, released last week, shows that the Ebola strain spreading across Western Africa has undergone a surprisingly high amount of genetic drift during the current outbreak. Experts say the mutations could eventually make the virus harder to diagnose and perhaps treat with a new therapeutic, should one come along. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, I wrote that in response to the crisis, the Obama administration has stressed that the disease is unlikely to spread inside America. We will certainly see cases diagnosed here, and perhaps even experience some isolated clusters of disease. For now, though,...

Rapidly Mutating Ebola Renders Diagnostic Tests Inaccurate - AKA: You May Have a New Strain of Ebola and Test Negative An international team of scientists — some of whom succumbed to the virus during the course of their research — has sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients in Sierra Leone, creating a valuable trove of genetic data for scientists and health care workers struggling to bring the growing outbreak under control. ... "We were able to sequence and analyze our samples with about a 10-day turnaround. This is unprecedented, as earlier studies have usually taken many months with...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is calling on the Obama administration to impose a travel ban on three West African nations in response to a growing Ebola virus outbreak. The House Foreign Affairs Committee member wants the State Department to bar citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from entering the United States, including any foreign travelers who have visited those countries in the previous 90 days. He also requested that the ban be expanded to any nation that reports an originating case of the virus, and that restrictions only be lifted 90 days after the last reported case.

A Canadian scientist has been arrested for smuggling 22 vials stolen from Canada's National Microbiology Lab, used in Ebola and HIV research, into the United States, Canadian and US officials said Wednesday. Konan Michel Yao, 42, "was taken into custody" while crossing from Manitoba into North Dakota A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman [said] Yao "was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things." The Ivory Coast-born scientist is said to have studied at Laval University in Quebec and briefly worked at the University of Manitoba's plant sciences department.

The first known case of Marburg hemorrhagic fever in the United States was treated at Lutheran Medical Center in January 2008, it was announced Friday. The disease, which is caused by a virus indigenous to Africa, is transmitted by contact with infected animals or the bodily fluids of infected humans. The patient, who was not identified, had apparently contracted the virus when he visited Uganda. While in that country, he had visited a python cave in Maramagambo Forest in Queen Elizabeth Park, where he came into contact with fruit bats, which are capable of harboring the Marburg virus. The CDC...

Philippine officials tucked into servings of lechon, the popular dish of roasted whole pig, in front of television cameras on Thursday to reassure the public of the safety of the national staple meat after the discovery among hogs near Manila of a strain of the Ebola virus. Arthur Yap, agriculture secretary, and Francisco Duque, health secretary, said the Ebola Reston virus, which had never been found in pigs before, presented a low health risk for humans and was different from the deadly African variety. The World Health Organisation was reported to be looking into whether there was any chance humans...

Wed Dec 5, 3:17 AM ET KAMPALA (AFP) - The Ebola virus has killed two doctors in western Uganda, bringing the toll to 21 since the strain first appeared in September, an official said on Wednesday. "The sad news is that our doctor who was admitted in Mulago died last night and a senior clinic officer who had been in critical condition died this morning," said Samuel Kazinga, district commissioner for Bundibugyo, the epicentre of the new outbreak. Kampala's Mulago hospital is the largest in the country. Some health officials have said that a lack of appropriate equiment in Mulago...

Associated Press GENEVA --A new form of the deadly Ebola virus has been detected in an outbreak in western Uganda that has so far killed 16 people, the World Health Organization said Friday. Tests conducted by a national lab in Uganda and confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the virus belongs to a different subtype than the four already known, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl. "We are very concerned about this because it does not present (symptoms) in exactly the same way as other Ebola strains," he said, adding that the new subtype appeared...

Meeting Doctor Doom Forrest M. Mims III Copyright 2006 by Forrest M. Mims III. There is always something special about science meetings. The 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 was especially exciting for me, because a student and his professor presented the results of a DNA study I suggested to them last year. How fulfilling to see the baldcypress ( Taxodium distichum ) leaves we collected last summer and my tree ring photographs transformed into a first class scientific presentation that's nearly ready to submit to a scientific journal...

Scientists trying to develop vaccines against Africa's deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses are reporting an important milestone, a new type of vaccine that prevents the diseases in monkeys. Successfully immunizing monkeys is an essential step toward the goal of producing vaccines for people. Two new vaccines, one for Marburg and one for Ebola, were 100 percent effective in a study of 12 macaques being published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Monkeys given just one shot of vaccine and later injected with a high dose of virus did not even get sick. Normally, all the animals would be expected to...

The first test in humans of an experimental vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus began yesterday, government scientists said. The vaccine, administered by injection, was designed to try to prevent outbreaks of the lethal hemorrhagic fever where it occurs naturally in Africa. It is also a bid to thwart any efforts to use the highly infectious virus as a bioterrorist agent. As part of a standard three-stage process, the first phase involves testing the vaccine's safety. Scientists also plan to measure immune responses among volunteers receiving the shots. No effective treatment exists against the viral infection, which kills up to...

Aids, the Ebola Virus, monkey-pox, and SARS are all diseases that probably started in wild animals and switched to humans.It now appears likely that the recent outbreak of SARS got its start from the close contact between Chinese animal merchants and their wares.The people of Guangdong Profince in southern China are famous for eating "everything with four legs except a table, everything that flies except an airplane, and everything that swims except a submarine," and support a brisk trade in cats, snakes, bats, dogs, civet cats, pangolins, and anything else hunters can get their hands on.People like the taste, but...

<p>Wiley's body was discovered shortly before 10 a.m. [Dec. 20, 2001] snagged to a tree in log-strewn water next to the Hydro Electric's S.A. Murray Jr. Station in Vidalia, Louisiana.</p> <p>Police found a wallet with documents that identified the body as Wiley, a 57-year-old nationally acclaimed expert in infectious diseases ...</p>