Posted on 08/30/2014 8:04:13 AM PDT by alexmark1917
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 much smaller datasets," says Daniel J. Park, a co-author and computational biologist at the Broad Institute, in an email interview with Mashable.
The research, which used an advanced genetic analysis technique known as deep sequencing, reveals that the disease is rapidly accumulating mutations as it spreads.
The team found 395 genetic changes, including 341 that make this outbreak distinct from the viral genomes tied to previous Ebola outbreaks, and 50 that are unique to the West African outbreak more broadly.
Of particular interest are mutations that alter protein sequences, since they could potentially change the accuracy of diagnostic tests for the virus as well as vaccines and therapies.
It is unclear if these mutations are related to the severity of the current outbreak, but further genetic analysis could determine this.
http://mashable.com/2014/08/28/dna-ebola-virus-sierra-leone-entered-country-funeral-guinea-study/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link
For starters, the data show that the virus is rapidly accumulating new mutations as it spreads through people. "We've found over 250 mutations that are changing in real time as we're watching," Sabeti says.
While moving through the human population in West Africa, she says, the virus has been collecting mutations about twice as quickly as it did while circulating among animals in the past decade or so.
"The more time you give a virus to mutate and the more human-to-human transmission you see," she says, "the more opportunities you give it to fall upon some [mutation] that could make it more easily transmissible or more pathogenic."
Sabeti says she doesn't know if that's happening yet. But the rapid change in the virus' genome could weaken the tools researchers have to detect Ebola or, potentially, to treat patients.
Diagnostic tests, experimental vaccines and drugs for Ebola — like the one recently used to treat two American patients — are all based on the gene sequences of the virus, Sabeti says. "If the virus is mutating away from the known sequence, that could be important to how these things work."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/28/343734184/ebola-is-rapidly-mutating-as-it-spreads-across-west-africa?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science
Five of the researchers who helped decode the Ebola virus genome have died in the current outbreak. http://t.co/JsZxglO2rE
— Karen Kaplan (@LATkarenkaplan) August 28, 2014
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FDA-Approved Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators Inhibit Ebola Virus Infection
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/190/190ra79.full.pdf
CDC Director Frieden: Risk is Increasing Tom Frieden's Ebola Assessment: The Risk Is Increasing
...Frieden says there's now a vicious cycle around Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia, which is amplifying the spread of the disease. "More cases are leading to less adequate management of each case, which is leading to more cases," he says. "That cycle has got to be broken for us to stop this."
The best hope lies in a new $489 million plan proposed by the World Health Organization, with the goal of stopping Ebola transmission within nine months. The ambitious plan would deploy hundreds of international experts and thousands of local medical staff. But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
Meanwhile, the bad news is mounting. "The number of cases is spiraling upward," he says. "There's an urgent need to get patients into isolation and start to get better control of the disease."
"This is a threat not just to West Africa and to Africa, this is a threat to the world," Frieden says, emphasizing the need to fund WHO's effort. Every day the outbreak continues "increases the risk of spread to other countries."
West African health departments don't have the staff, training or equipment to control this disease on their own, Frieden says. That means the international community must pick up the pace of its response to the crisis.
"Literally every day that we don't make more progress controlling the outbreak," Frieden says, "is another day that the outbreak will not just continue — but grow much larger."
http://kuow.org/post/tom-friedens-ebola-assessment-risk-increasing?utm_referrer=http://m.kuow.org/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F#mobile/40830
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Diseased_Ebola_2014.png/360px-Diseased_Ebola_2014.png
New Strain in DR Congo:
The Health Minister Felix Kabange, announced Thursday, Aug. 28 that seven new cases of Ebola have been confirmed by laboratory tests. Bringing to thirteen the number of people affected by the virus in the area Djera people in northern Ecuador, where the epidemic was declared.
http://radiookapi.net/actualite/2014/08/29/rdc-7-nouveaux-cas-debola-djera/
US Expecting THOUSANDS Of College Students From West AfricaTo Attend School in US...."MAY" BE SUBJECT TO HEALTH CHECKS
College students from West Africa may be subject to extra health checks when they arrive to study in the United States as administrators try to insulate their campuses from the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
With the virus continuing to kill in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, the expected arrival of thousands of students from those countries has U.S. authorities on alert but cautioning against alarm.
"I can see why there would be concern; there's no vaccine for it," said Fatima Nor, an 18-year-old freshman at the University at Buffalo, where about 25 students from Nigeria are enrolled for fall. But she said knowing that the virus is transmitted strictly through direct contact with bodily fluids of sick people, and not by sitting next to someone in class, should be enough to calm nerves.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/08/29/us-colleges-screen-some-students-for-ebola/
CDC Changes Criteria for Ebola Transmission; admits "being within 3 feet" or "in same room" can cause infection
THIS WEEK the CDC changed their information about how Ebola can spread; they now admit "being within 3 feet" of an infected person or "being in the same room" with an infected person can allow the virus to infect someone else! They also admit a person who is infected, but not yet showing symptoms, is contagious!
http://preventebola.com/public/index.php/news/54-cdc-changes-criteria-for-ebola-transmission-admits-being-within-3-feet-or-in-same-room-can-cause-infection
video: http://investmentwatchblog.com/rapidly-mutating-ebola-renders-diagnostic-tests-inaccurate-aka-you-may-have-a-new-strain-of-ebola-and-test-negative/
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Ping!
Well - No.
The best hope is to shut down air travel from the afflicted regions and let the epidemic burn out.
Unless the disease changes, we are on track for 2-3 million deaths in the next twelve months. Most of these deaths will be in Africa. It is too late for medical intervention to stop this.
Ouch. So you are contagious before showing symptoms ? International air travel to infected countries has to stop.
This will render any vaccines or ZMapp treatments useless.
Makes me wonder if the patients who received ZMapp and died had a strain different enough for the ZMapp to be useless.
See.... smart mutation. Not random at all.
The best hope lies in a new $489 million plan proposed by the World Health Organization, with the goal of stopping Ebola transmission within nine months. The ambitious plan would deploy hundreds of international experts and thousands of local medical staff. But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
Meanwhile, the bad news is mounting. “The number of cases is spiraling upward,” he says. “There’s an urgent need to get patients into isolation and start to get better control of the disease.” But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
“This is a threat not just to West Africa and to Africa, this is a threat to the world,” Frieden says, emphasizing the need to fund WHO’s effort. Every day the outbreak continues “increases the risk of spread to other countries.” But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
West African health departments don’t have the staff, training or equipment to control this disease on their own, Frieden says. That means the international community must pick up the pace of its response to the crisis. But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
“Literally every day that we don’t make more progress controlling the outbreak,” Frieden says, “is another day that the outbreak will not just continue — but grow much larger.” But first, Frieden stresses, the money has to be raised.
If the virus is that unstable, I am led to suspect it may have been artificially fabricated. (i.e. a man-made root virus formulated in the lab and let loose as a weapon or trial.)
Once it gets to the west the money will magically appear.
The elites however want as many dead Africans as possible it would seem. So they’ll dither around so long as it stays in Africa.
“Bringing to thirteen the number of people affected by the virus in the area Djera people in northern ECUADOR, where the epidemic was declared.”
This jumped out at me, but it seems that they must have used a “google translator” or something like it. I followed the link to a French language report. I don’t read French, but I imagine that the original news report is saying that the Djera live north of the equator.
Entirely possible.
What will make this especially difficult to contain is the unprecedented number of human bioreactors out there not only serving as a breeding ground for the virus, but for mutation.
Add in the other species which humans commonly have contact with--intentional or otherwise, from canines to rodents, and there is more host biomass than ever known to exist.
Unfortunately we have a little while yet to wait before we find out if those who "tested negative for Ebola" in several countries were, in fact, negative.
I pray that is the case, otherwise, this has already spread far beyond its known limits.
I think the issue is the human 2 human transmission chain. It’s never undergone so many sequential H2H2H2H2 transmissions before that we know of. It’s figuring us out and throwing spaghetti at the wall to do it.
The diagnosed patients are where ebola was roughly 2 weeks ago. Where ebola is now is anyone’s guess.
Idiots........
Quarantining them is the ONLY answer. It must be stopped mechanically, so to speak.
“If the virus is that unstable, I am led to suspect it may have been artificially fabricated. (i.e. a man-made root virus formulated in the lab and let loose as a weapon or trial.)”
I’ve been wondering about this myself given that Islam is a dominant religion in the country where it first came to light this time around.
You are with virtually any virus. It's how they spread.
If you were contagious after you showed symptoms, then all you would need to do is quarantine the ill persons and the virus would cease to spread.
Talk about burying the lede:
CDC Changes Criteria for Ebola Transmission; admits “being within 3 feet” or “in same room” can cause infection
THIS WEEK the CDC changed their information about how Ebola can spread; they now admit “being within 3 feet” of an infected person or “being in the same room” with an infected person can allow the virus to infect someone else! They also admit a person who is infected, but not yet showing symptoms, is contagious!
Notably, this appears right after a Nigerian student coming to the US claims the direct contrary, that nobody should be afraid of catching in from someone in their college class.
Do some googling/ixquicking on the ‘kenema’ and ‘infectious disease’ and ‘lab’.
Just for kix and grins.
What is needed now is a way to limit movement and interpersonal contact to reduce the geographic spread of the infection.
So far, reliance on tests that simply may not work to determine if people with Ebola-like symptoms have crossed international boundaries far beyond Africa may prove troublesome.
I recall instances where people were suspected of presenting symptoms in Ireland, England, Germany, Albania, and Italy, and there may be more non-African nations, but all tested negative. If early enough on in the mutation series, those tests may be valid (let's hope and pray they are). If not, and the people had a mutated variant, there is the possibility that they, those they came into contact with, and those those persons came into contact with are in grave danger, (and the chain continues).
Underestimating the disease is the greatest danger, any error should be on the side of caution.
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