Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak
за 2 месяца эволюции вируса ученые насчитали около 300 мутаций (что вроде бы нормальный коэффициент, как уверяют исследователи).
5-ро из авторов этой статьи в "Науке" умерли до того, как статья вышла в свет.
Five of the authors died of Ebola before it was published. All were affiliated with Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone.
One surprise from the paper is that two different strains of Ebola came out of that funeral. This suggests that either the healer was infected with two different strains or that another person at the funeral was already infected.
As Ebola then traveled across Sierra Leone, a third strain of the virus appeared.
this outbreak has had a higher transmission rate and lower death rate than others, and researchers are curious if any of these mutations are related to that.
The Ebola virus sweeping through West Africa has mutated repeatedly during the current outbreak, a fact that could hinder diagnosis and treatment of the devastating disease, according to scientists who have genetically sequenced the virus in scores of victims.
In a collaboration led by scientists at Harvard University and aided by officials at Sierra Leone’s health ministry, researchers sequenced Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients beginning in the early days of the outbreak this spring. Those 99 samples — some patients were tested more than once — suggested that the outbreak began with a single human infection before spreading rapidly, like a spark that grows into a wildfire.
Thursday’s study also details hundreds of genetic mutations that make the current Ebola outbreak different from any in the past. Some of those changes have the potential to affect the accuracy of diagnostic tests or the effectiveness of vaccines and treatments under development for the disease.
никто и не сомневался в том что вирус мутирует, особенно при эпидемии.
надеюсь вдальнейшем картина станет еще более ясной.
и хорошо бы, чтобы получилось эту эпидемия унять, да поскорее.
