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Ebola is not mutating, and vaccines will soon solve it
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- The threat of Ebola is non-existent.
- Ebola is all hype
EbolaEbola is not mutating, and vaccines will soon solve itMaron 15— associate editor for health and medicine at Scientific American (Diane Fine, “Ebola Virus Not Mutating as Quickly as Feared,” Scientific American, March 26, 2015, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ebola-virus-not-mutating-as-quickly-as-feared/). WM As a virus travels from person to person it evolves and, sometimes, it becomes a better and more efficient killer. But researchers still do not know if that is what happened with the Ebola virus currently circulating in west Africa. So far there is no indication that this strain is inherently more virulent or more transmissible than when Ebola appeared in other areas of Africa in the past. But that question has not been truly answered by the science. What researchers do know, thanks to new findings published today, is that the virus is not mutating particularly quickly. Despite an earlier analysis that suggested the virus currently roiling west Africa may be mutating at a rate twice as fast as in the past, this new more comprehensive snapshot of the virus implies that, fortunately, Ebola is not evolving at a rate that would automatically upend the bevy of targeted vaccines and therapies in clinical trials. Such studies of the virus’s mutation rate are essential because researchers racing to find therapies and vaccines for the virus are preparing to combat the pathogen in its current form. If the virus were to dramatically change, its alterations would mean researchers no longer had an accurate understanding of the species against which they were building an arsenal. The new findings are published in Science. For this work, researchers analyzed full-length genome sequences from several disease clusters of Ebola. They compared the genomes of several virus samples collected in Guinea in March 2014 with dozens of samples from Sierra Leone in June 2014 and newer sequences from Mali collected in October and November 2014, scouring them for overall variation. They found that there were surprisingly few differences between the genomes despite the fact that they were sampled months apart and had likely passed between many individuals. Based on current knowledge of the virus, the mutations mostly appear to be minor. Notably, the researchers calculated that the apparent mutation rate seemed to match that of earlier Ebola virus outbreaks in central Africa in years past. The new study tracked genetic changes in Ebola over a longer period in 2014 than anyone had examined previously, so it gives a fuller picture of the virus and its changes, says lead study co-author Heinz Feldmann, a virologist with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. “We did not see the doubling in the evolution rate that we may have expected from earlier findings,” he says. In contrast, the earlier work he referenced, also published in Science, compared all the genomes of the virus that were available at the time—those sampled over several weeks in May and June 2014 in Sierra Leone and in March 2014 from Guinea. One explanation for the fewer genetic changes found in the newest work may be that certain mutations occurring in the earlier study period—a snapshot of a shorter time—disappeared as the virus continued to mutate and are now undetectable, Feldmann says. But the important public health conclusions from the newest finding, he adds, are that it’s “less likely than we thought that vaccines and treatment options will fail.” Still, it may not be the final word—more genomes of the virus sampled in 2015 from elsewhere in west Africa will provide a clearer picture of the virus’s mutations in future studies, he says. The Feldmann team finding, coupled with other new results out today in Science that detail the successes of a candidate for an Ebola vaccine tested in macaque monkeys, provide much-needed good news in the fight against the virus that has killed more than 10,000 people in the past year. Although there is no scientifically proven vaccine to prevent Ebola from sickening people, several candidate formulations are currently in the early stages of human trials. The newest results bring another potential candidate drug into view. A vaccine made from a chemically inactivated whole Ebola virus was found to be successful at preventing disease in macaque monkeys, a stand-in test subject for humans. The vaccine was also still effective at preventing disease after it was exposed to hydrogen peroxide as an additional safety precaution to ensure the inactivated virus would not be able to replicate. “Findings in nonhuman primates are always significant,” says Thomas Geisbert, a virologist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Yet in a field that has quickly become crowded with candidates to combat Ebola, “it remains to be seen how it will compare with the vaccines that are already in human trials and what this other vaccine’s timeline will be,” he says. The threat of Ebola is non-existent.Bächle’14-- Michelson Medical Research Institute (Susanna, “Ebola: The Hype over a Neglected Disease,“ Michelson Medical Research Institute- an organization leveraging the collaboration of engineers, scientists, and physicians to solve real world problems. 2014/10/02, http://michelsonmedical.org/2014/10/02/ebola-hype-neglected-disease/). WM Ebola in the U.S.: More than believe the hype? With Health Aid Organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) treating patients and assisting local health agencies in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, foreign aid workers have themselves become victims of the virus (US individuals Kent Brantly, Nancy Writebol; an anonymous French nurse). In each occurence, the infected individual has been rapatriated to his home country and placed under strict quarantine to follow treatment. With such heavy emphasis on non propagation protocols, the recent unearthing of an ebola infected Liberia national travelling to the U.S. (Thomas Duncan) who possibly infected up to 18 people in immediate contact, it is no surprise that national uproar is now pressuring airline companies in better monitoring foreign travellers originating from ebola infected regions. The Thomas Duncan case may push ebola scare in the U.S. to new heights but the disease remains, according to Dr. Peter Hotez, M.D. from the Sabin Vaccine Institute, an “enormous hype” where numbers are concerned. Death toll wise, the number of people who have died from Ebola during the current West Africa outbreak is comparable to the number of people who perish in drunk driving accidents in Texas over the same amount of time and about the same number that die of malaria in Africa every day. In the words of Dr. Hotez, Ebola remains “a scary but rare disease”. Ebola is all hypeFarhi 14—media reporter for Washington Post (Paul, “Media’s hype about Ebola outweighs the actual risk,” Portland Press Herald, October 7, 2014, http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/07/medias-hype-about-ebola-outweighs-the-actual-risk/). WM WASHINGTON — There’s a potentially deadly disease afoot in America, with no known cure and terrifying consequences for those infected. Ebola? Well, yes, but another bug has had far more wide-ranging consequences. Since an outbreak began in late summer, the enterovirus has sent thousands of people, primarily children, to hospitals in 43 states and the District of Columbia. One strain, enterovirus D68, has apparently caused polio-like symptoms in some patients, leaving them unable to move their limbs. Four people who recently died tested positive for the disease, although the link between the virus and the deaths is unclear, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You might not know all that from the news media’s reporting over the past few weeks. The enterovirus certainly hasn’t been ignored, but it’s a mere footnote compared with the oceanic volumes devoted to Ebola, a disease that has devastated parts of West Africa but has only one confirmed case diagnosed in the United States. But even when the reporting is accurate, the sheer tonnage of it raises a question about proportion and relative risk: Why is Ebola a media superstar when other diseases – say, enterovirus or the common flu – have more far-reaching and even deadlier consequences in this country? The question is a familiar one to people involved in spreading the word about public-health threats. News reporting, they say, typically underplays some risks and overplays others. Mundane behaviors – smoking, overeating – don’t rate sustained media coverage yet are linked to preventable diseases that kill tens of thousands annually. Ordinary viruses, such as the flu, take a huge toll as well but don’t rate screaming headlines. “If any or all of these issues received the levels of media coverage and public concern that Ebola was receiving, thousands of annual deaths could be prevented,” said Jay Bernhardt, the founding director of the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas. The volume of Ebola coverage, he said, “reminds me a lot of the over-the-top coverage of serial killers or celebrity scandals in that they are far out of proportion with the risk or relevance to the general population.” Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 2.62 Mb. 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