ALBERT

Description: A novel Ebola virus (EBOV) first identified in March 2014 has infected more than 25,000 people in West Africa, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths. Preliminary analyses of genome sequences of 81 EBOV collected from March to June 2014 from Guinea and Sierra Leone suggest that the 2014 EBOV originated from an independent transmission event from its natural reservoir followed by sustained human-to-human infections. It has been reported that the EBOV genome variation might have an effect on the efficacy of sequence-based virus detection and candidate therapeutics. However, only limited viral information has been available since July 2014, when the outbreak entered a rapid growth phase. Here we describe 175 full-length EBOV genome sequences from five severely stricken districts in Sierra Leone from 28 September to 11 November 2014. We found that the 2014 EBOV has become more phylogenetically and genetically diverse from July to November 2014, characterized by the emergence of multiple novel lineages. The substitution rate for the 2014 EBOV was estimated to be 1.23 x 10(-3) substitutions per site per year (95% highest posterior density interval, 1.04 x 10(-3) to 1.41 x 10(-3) substitutions per site per year), approximating to that observed between previous EBOV outbreaks. The sharp increase in genetic diversity of the 2014 EBOV warrants extensive EBOV surveillance in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to better understand the viral evolution and transmission dynamics of the ongoing outbreak. These data will facilitate the international efforts to develop vaccines and therapeutics.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tong, Yi-Gang -- Shi, Wei-Feng -- Liu, Di -- Qian, Jun -- Liang, Long -- Bo, Xiao-Chen -- Liu, Jun -- Ren, Hong-Guang -- Fan, Hang -- Ni, Ming -- Sun, Yang -- Jin, Yuan -- Teng, Yue -- Li, Zhen -- Kargbo, David -- Dafae, Foday -- Kanu, Alex -- Chen, Cheng-Chao -- Lan, Zhi-Heng -- Jiang, Hui -- Luo, Yang -- Lu, Hui-Jun -- Zhang, Xiao-Guang -- Yang, Fan -- Hu, Yi -- Cao, Yu-Xi -- Deng, Yong-Qiang -- Su, Hao-Xiang -- Sun, Yu -- Liu, Wen-Sen -- Wang, Zhuang -- Wang, Cheng-Yu -- Bu, Zhao-Yang -- Guo, Zhen-Dong -- Zhang, Liu-Bo -- Nie, Wei-Min -- Bai, Chang-Qing -- Sun, Chun-Hua -- An, Xiao-Ping -- Xu, Pei-Song -- Zhang, Xiang-Li-Lan -- Huang, Yong -- Mi, Zhi-Qiang -- Yu, Dong -- Yao, Hong-Wu -- Feng, Yong -- Xia, Zhi-Ping -- Zheng, Xue-Xing -- Yang, Song-Tao -- Lu, Bing -- Jiang, Jia-Fu -- Kargbo, Brima -- He, Fu-Chu -- Gao, George F -- Cao, Wu-Chun -- China Mobile Laboratory Testing Team in Sierra Leone -- England -- Nature. 2015 Aug 6;524(7563):93-6. doi: 10.1038/nature14490. Epub 2015 May 13.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing 100071, China. ; Institute of Pathogen Biology, Taishan Medical College, Taian 271000, China. ; Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. ; Key Laboratory of Jilin Province for Zoonosis Prevention and Control, Changchun 130122, China. ; Beijing Key Laboratory of New Molecular Diagnostics Technology, Beijing 100850, China. ; Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China. ; Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Freetown, Sierra Leone. ; Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone. ; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. ; Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK. ; Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences &Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China. ; Institute of Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100021, China. ; The No. 302 Hospital, Beijing 100039, China. ; The No. 307 Hospital, Beijing 100071, China. ; Department of international cooperation, National Health and Family Planning Commission, Beijing 100044, China. ; State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing 102206, China. ; 1] Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China [2] Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China [3] Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25970247" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉