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Ebola genetic code analysed to show evolution of worst ever outbreak
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THE GUARDIAN by Ian Sample June 18, 2015
Scientists have analysed the genetic code of Ebola viruses from patients across west Africa and pieced together the evolution of the worst ever outbreak of the killer disease.
Experts from Public Health England at Porton Down in Britain, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and other leading labs, used DNA from 179 Ebola samples to reconstruct the spread of the virus from Guinea into surrounding countries last year.
The study found that the initial outbreak had been dying out in Guinea in early 2014 and might have been contained had the international community diagnosed Ebola just one month earlier than it did. The outbreak has so far recorded 27,000 cases and killed more than 11,000 people.
...“The initial containment was nearly successful. If we’d been out there not at the end of March, but in February, maybe this would never have happened,” said Miles Carroll, head of microbiology research at Public Health England. “We could have stopped a lot of health workers and patients from becoming infected.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/17/ebola-genetic-code-analysed-evolution-worst-outbreak
NATURE MAGAZINE
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14594.html
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Additional details on how Ebola spread
NEW YORK TIMES by Sheri Fink June 19, 2015
...Scientists have wondered whether the variant of the virus that spread to Sierra Leone from Guinea mutated in a way that made it more capable of propagating in humans.
But other researchers have found evidence that the earlier version of the virus in Guinea did not completely go away. Instead, it spread to the capital, Conakry. It has continued to be among the versions of the virus propagating in Guinea and later in Sierra Leone. Two dozen new cases were reported in both countries in the week ending June 14.
“That lineage, ‘A,’ does persist and is still persisting as far as we know in Conakry and that area,” said Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh, who helped analyze the genetic relationships between viruses.
The new studies have also calmed fears that Ebola in West Africa was mutating at a higher rate than scientists had anticipated based on past outbreaks.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/world/africa/genome-studies-show-how-ebola-spread-initially.html?_r=1