(Newswire.net — August 31, 2014) — The study, reveals the rates of mutation in the deadly Ebola virus, that has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, including more than 140 health care workers.
“We found the virus is doing what viruses do. It’s mutating,” says study lead, author Pardis Sabeti of Harvard University and the Broad Institute.
Study coauthor Robert Garry of Tulane University says the virus is mutating at twice the rate in people as it was in animal hosts, such as fruit bats.
The samples, taken from 78 infected individuals, show that during the early outbreak more than 300 genetic changes occurred as the virus moved from person to person.
Garry says the study shows changes in the glycoprotein, the surface protein that binds the virus to human cells, allowing it to start replicating in its human host.
“It’s also what your immune system will recognise,” he says.
The mutations may be significant if they reduce the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and treatments currently being developed.
In an unusual step, the researchers posted the sequences online, as soon as they became available, giving other researchers early access to the data.
That could impact treatments underway from Vancouver-based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp and privately held Profectus BioSciences of Tarrytown, New York.
Also, part of what makes the data useful is the precise picture it paints as the epidemic unfolds. Study lead author Sabeti credits years of work by her lab, colleagues at Tulane and the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation in developing a response network for Lassa fever, a virus similar to Ebola that is endemic in West Africa.
Several of the study authors gave their lives in line of duty, including Dr Sheik Humarr Khan, the beloved “hero” doctor from the Kenema Government Hospital, who died from Ebola.
The team had been doing surveillance for two months when the first case of Ebola arrived from Guinea on 25 May. That case involved a “sowei” or tribal healer, whose claim of a cure lured sick Ebola victims from nearby Guinea.
“When she contracted Ebola and died, there were a lot of people who came to her funeral,” study coauthor Robert Garry said. One of these was a young pregnant woman who became infected and travelled to Kenema Government Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Ebola.
The Ebola virus is likely to spread further and the World Health Organisation reports that some 20,000 people are at risk of infection.