The UN says Ebola in Guinea could be linked to the 2014 revolution
GENEVA – A senior official from the World Health Organization says a genetic study of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Guinea suggests it may have been triggered by a West African epilepsy survivor. ended five years ago.
At a press conference in Geneva, WHO emergency chief Dr Michael Ryan described the results of the genetic order of the virus in Guinea as “quite remarkable.”
Scientists in Africa and Germany posted their results on a virology website on Friday, concluding that people currently infected with the Ebola virus in Guinea are very similar to the virus that sparked the widespread revolution in West Africa that began in 2014.
“More research is needed,” Ryan said. But he said that, based on the available genetic order data, the normal behavior did not appear to be linked to an animal – as is the case with almost all previous Ebola infections. has started. “(This) is significantly more likely to be related to the survival (virus) or infectious latency in a person.” Ryan said that was probably the longest time a virus has ever stood between outbreaks.
Scientists have been recording survivors of Ebola who inadvertently injected others long after they recovered, but cases have not been so rare. In 2018, doctors published a study about a Liberian woman who contracted Ebola in 2014 but then arrested three relatives about a year later.
Health officials have also warned that men can sometimes infect others through sexual activity long after they have recovered – the virus can persist in semen for more than a year.
The scarce ability of Ebola to spread long after an infection highlights the importance of monitoring survivors, and Ryan warned against their stigmatization. He said most people who are sick with Ebola clear the virus from their system and recover within six months.
Ryan said a small number of people carry the virus, but are not infectious to others “except in certain circumstances.”
He said there have been 18 cases of Ebola in Guinea so far and that WHO has sent more than 30,000 doses of vaccine to the country.
The Ebola uprising that swept across West Africa from 2014 to 2016 killed more than 11,000 people.