Gene Research Yields Insights Into Ebola Virus
Posted: August 30, 2014 at 5:42 am
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Latest Infectious Disease News
THURSDAY, Aug. 28, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Genetic research performed during the early days of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has given scientists unprecedented insight into how the virus mutates and spreads.
Researchers report in the Aug. 28 online issue of Science that they have now determined the following:
The researchers' efforts have quadrupled the amount of genetic data available on Ebola, creating mounds of new and publicly available information about the DNA structure of the deadly virus, said senior study author Dr. Pardis Sabeti.
Sabeti is a senior associate member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and an associate professor at Harvard University.
The ongoing Ebola outbreak has infected 3,069 people and claimed the lives of 1,552, according to the World Health Organization.
The genetic researchers rapidly sequenced and analyzed more than 99 Ebola viruses from 78 patients in Sierra Leone during the first 24 days of the outbreak there.
Government health officials traced the entrance of Ebola into Sierra Leone to the burial of a traditional healer who had treated patients in neighboring Guinea. Thirteen women who attended the burial contracted Ebola, and researchers drew viral samples from these women to begin genetic sequencing.
Such genetic data is comparable to "fingerprints at the scene of the crime," said Dr. Lee Norman, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Hospital.
"It tells you so much about how and where the virus came from, and what we can do about it," Norman said.
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Gene Research Yields Insights Into Ebola Virus