The Ebola virus causing havoc in West Africa may not be mutating at the fast rate previously thought by some medics. As detailed in new research, Ebola is evolving more gradually in people than an earlier study estimated.
With the earlier research, Harvard University researchers investigated Ebola samples blood samples, taken from infected people in Sierra Leone. The inference of the genetic research was that the virus was rapidly mutating. This research finding led to concern that the virus could become more infectious. The research was published in the journal Science (in a paper called “Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak.”)
However, with the new 2015 study, a different research group looking at Ebola cases in Mali, have found that the virus is not mutating fast. The lead author of the new research, David Safronetz, of the Laboratory of Virology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has said in an interview with The New York Times Ebola “hasn’t become increasingly lethal or increasingly virulent…he virus—it’s doing what it’s always done.”
Discussing the findings, Anthony Fauci (NIAID Director) told the science blog Goats and Soda blog: “This is some good news for the development of interventions. The data also indicate it’s quite unlikely the virus will mutate and change its way of transmission.”
The new research has been also been published in the journal Science. The research is called “Mutation rate and genotype variation of Ebola virus from Mali case sequences.”
