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The Ebola virus family just got a little bigger.
The government of Sierra Leone has announced that a new species of Ebola, the sixth, has been found there in bats. It was tentatively called the Bombali virus after a district in the north of the country where it was found.
There is no evidence that the new virus has infected people, although EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit environmental group involved in the discovery, said on Twitter that it has the potential to infect human cells.
The discovery was made by scientists from the University of California at Davis and Columbia University as part of an effort funded by the United States to find viruses that have the potential to cause outbreaks at people's Place.
"It's really interesting, I think it's exciting, but I think we have a lot of work to do to really understand if it's a pathogen and whether that constitutes or is not a threat, "said STAT Tracey Goldstein of UC Davis One Health Institute on Friday. 19659002] Peter Daszak, CEO of EcoHealth Alliance, said that a scientific document detailing the discovery is in the publication pipeline. Some newspapers forbid public discussion of the work they plan to publish and Goldstein will not say anything about where and when the work will be published.
The normal process of announcing the discovery of a new virus is through a peer-reviewed journal. The scientists who make the claim detail in detail how they found the virus – or in this case, the genetic evidence of a virus – and the work that they did to prove that it was new , and not just a new strain of an already known pathogen.
However, Sierra Leone, who had been informed of the discovery, wanted to make an announcement to the local press on Thursday.
"They want to prevent negative rumors and launch educational programs to reduce the overflow potential," said Daszak.
Goldstein stated that the virus was found in two types of Molossid family bats, free-tailed Angolan bats and small free-tailed bats. These two species of bats sleep together, said Goldstein. They were found throughout sub-Saharan Africa
Bats infected were found in people's homes, she reports in ProMED, an online infectious disease notification system.
Scientists have not tried to extract bats, Goldstein said. Viral fragments – RNA – were detected; Daszak says, "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have received samples of bats tested positive for the Bombali virus
Stuart Nichol, head of the Viral Review CDC scientists will try to see if they are safe. they can extract whole infectious virus from oral and rectal swabs taken from bats.
Nichol said that it is clear from the genetic sequence of the Bombali virus that it is sufficiently different from other types of ebolaviruses are considered distinct species.
It is currently unclear whether the virus is dangerous for humans. The scientists who discovered it made a copy of the main protein on the outside of the virus – using the genetic code as a recipe, Nichol said. They put this protein on what is called a pseudovirus, a similar entity to a benign synthetic virus that is used in research.
The pseudovirus carrying the Bombali virus protein could infect human cells, he said. But you can not conclude from this that the Bombali virus would kill. Nichol says, "Just because he enters human cells does not mean that he will cause human disease"
Sierra Leone is one of only three in West Africa who was engulfed in a devastating Ebola outbreak in 2014 and 2015. The outbreak was caused by the ebolavirus known as Zaire Ebola virus. Before this new discovery, there were five known species of Ebola: the Zaire virus, sometimes simply called Ebola; Ebola virus from Sudan; Bundibugyo; The forest of Täi; and Reston
The Ebola and Sudan viruses caused the most famous outbreaks; Bundibugyo, discovered in 2007, caused only two. In Ivory Coast, in 1994, there has been only one known case of Ebola virus infection in the Tai Forest. The Reston virus, discovered in the Philippines, can infect people but does not seem to infect them. However, it kills non-human primates and can also infect pigs.
Bats are considered the natural reservoir of all species of Ebola, but no one has succeeded in isolating live Ebola viruses. However, scientists found Marburg viruses in Egyptian bats. Marburg and Ebola are related; both are members of the filovirus family.
Further study of bats will likely lead to additional discoveries of related viruses, predicts Nichol. "I think this is not the last virus of this kind to be discovered," he said. "We will find others."
Goldstein noted that Chinese scientists have reported finding other filoviruses in bats as well. Finding more will help scientists determine what the risks are for people.
"I think when we find more ebolavirus, we can study them and try to understand what makes them pathogenic and others not pathogenic," she says. "And we hope to provide information on how to better protect people from those who are more pathogenic."
This article is reproduced with the permission of STAT. It was published on July 27, 2018. Find the original story here.
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