[Mother Abigail]

Just a quick synopsis of the current state of Ebola research.

GENETIC ANALYSIS OF THE OUTBREAKS

Investigations into the outbreaks of Ebola in humans during the late 1990's pointed to a link with great apes.

The origins of many of these epidemics could be traced to direct human contact with dead chimpanzees or gorillas, either through hunting bush meat or from handling carcasses found in the forest.

The index [first] cases were mainly hunters and transmission occurred by direct person-to-person contact.

We have identified at least 10 separate chains of transmission, each originating from one index case occurring between October 2001 and May 2003.

By analyzing the genetic material of the virus to see whether these outbreaks had resulted from multiple introductions of a single viral strain or separate introductions of several strains of Ebola it was discovered that:

(1) There were at least eight different strains of Ebola involved, showing that for this relatively short period under study the mode of transmission of the disease was more complex than previously imagined.

(2) Because Ebola is a genetically stable virus - unlike say influenza, which mutates rapidly - the fact that many strains are involved suggested that there have been multiple independent introductions of the virus from the reservoir species into apes and humans.

Different strains of Ebola virus may be widespread throughout the forests of central Africa, with simultaneous infection of great apes occurring from unknown natural hosts under particular but unknown environmental conditions.

Ebola outbreaks probably do not occur as a single outbreak spreading throughout the Congo basin as others have proposed but are due to multiple episodic infection of great apes.

THE UKNOWN RESERVOIR

The great unknown, of course, is the name of this reservoir species.

We aren't near to identifying the animal but we have some ideas, in particular fruit bats.

We don't have much evidence at all, just observations and ideas.

Both apes and fruit bats eat the same kind of food so it is not unreasonable to assume that they may come into close contact with one another at certain times of the year.

Ebola outbreaks in wild animals seem to occur at the beginning of the dry season. But no one has yet shown that it is possible to find Ebola virus in wild bats.

In South Africa a scientist succeeded in infecting fruit bats experimentally and he observed rapid development of the virus.


So although it is technically possible to infect fruits bats with Ebola, there is still no evidence that this is the mystery reservoir species.

Until this animal is found, the sole measure that we can take in predicting and preventing an Ebola outbreak in humans is to watch what is happening to gorillas and chimpanzees in the wild.

I wish there were better news.

[TaxRelief]

I wonder which biomed stocks Henry Niman will try to pump up now?

[null and void]

I wish there were better news.

There will be.

Good to see you again, BTW...

[Marie]

Thanks for the bump, Mother! Man, this year went fast...

[Domestic Church]

MA, Thank you for the ebola synopsis...considering the "caves of darkness" info translated from the jihadi postings this is germane to the current threat matrix.

Folks please read the new post, post # 57 on this thread.

[united1000]

Thanks for the update Mother Abigail, good to see you back. I've watched this one from the very beginning.......

[Mother Abigail]

Bats....

Consensus is growing among professionals.

More details after I unpack and try to rescue my poor ferns.


MA

[theFIRMbss]

>the sole measure that we can take in predicting and preventing an Ebola outbreak in humans is

That's not really true.
The best thing we all can do --
as a culture and

individuals --
is keep our immune system
strong by avoiding

doing drugs for fun,
chronic exhaustion and foods
full of chemicals.

If we stay healthy,
it might not matter what bugs
now and then pop up.

[Mother Abigail]

 
Gene-swapping Ebola is a slippery target

Scientists have genetically sequenced Ebola viruses from gorillas and chimpanzees for the first time and found the virus to be more varied than previously thought.

Unexpectedly, they have also discovered that different strains of the virus can swap genes - a find that could make producing a vaccine much more difficult.

The Ebola virus causes fever and haemorrhage and kills up to 90% of people who catch it. It has spread cross Africa since 1976, infecting humans and apes sporadically and also hiding in bats.

An outbreak currently underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is so far thought to have infected 76 people. Ebola has also killed thousands of apes and has caused the lowland gorilla to be classed as endangered.

The genetic code for human versions of the viruses taken from humans has been sequenced before.

But, as sick animals are so difficult to find in the wild, and dead ones decompose quickly, until now no one has sequenced the virus from an ape.

Distributed virus

Eric Leroy and colleagues at the International Centre for Medical Research in Franceville, Gabon, managed to retrieve all or part of the Ebola virus from the remains of six gorillas and one chimpanzee. The viral genes were found to be similar to each other and to viruses from human victims in the same region.

But when all the sequences were analysed and compared, they clustered in two groups that, according to a model of how fast such viruses evolve, diverged from each other in 1976.

Furthermore, when all available samples - from both humans and apes - were analysed together, those collected after 1996 were found to be more similar to each other than to those collected (from humans alone) before 1996.

Leroy believes this shows that the virus is already distributed across central Africa and something else must be responsible for the current wave of outbreaks.
Leroy says the genetic differences “add to evidence for the pre-existing distribution of the virus.”

Rare recombination

The results may not resolve the rivalry between competing theories about how Ebola spreads. Peter Walsh of the Max Planck Institute for Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, does not believe the virus is already distributed, and says different forms of it may simply be spreading together. “We have too few samples to know,” he says.

But both experts agree that the real surprise is that recent samples from humans show some genes from one cluster and some from another.

Such recombination is rare in RNA viruses and has never been seen before in filoviruses such as Ebola.

This recombination also means that a much wider range of genetic variants may emerge, making it harder to create an effective vaccine, says Walsh.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12750-geneswapping-ebola-is-a-slippery-target.html

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This is very bad news.

MA