Ebola

Anyone who has been on the planet for the last four years will know how viruses that evolve to jump across species can rapidly become a serious global crisis. Researchers now believe we're in an alarming new age of vertebrate animal-to-human infections.

The World Health Organization is rapidly responding to a pair of new Ebola outbreaks in Africa. The two unrelated outbreaks, in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have both appeared in locations previously connected to Ebola flare-ups.

With focus on COVID-19, it’s easy to forget about other deadly viruses. Now, researchers have tested a novel vaccine candidate for Ebola in animals, which doesn’t contain live vectors and appears to be effective against all four species of the virus.

Scientists are investigating how the cell-destroying abilities of viruses can be leveraged to better attack different cancers, with a new study showing how a gene taken from the Ebola virus could be used to take the fight to a deadly brain tumor.

New MIT and Harvard research shows how versatile CRISPR is, putting the genetic scissors to work in diagnostic tools and timed drug delivery systems.

A clinical trial taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been terminated early due to the success of two drugs being investigated to treat the Ebola virus. The two drugs have displayed incredible survival rates, especially if given at the earliest stages of infection.

​Although Ebola vaccines have been developed, each one has typically only been able to protect against a single strain of the virus. A new medication, however, has been shown to ward off all types of Ebola – and it does so via just one low dose.

A new genus of filovirus has been detected in bats in Southern China. The new virus is evolutionarily similar to the notorious Ebola and Marburg viruses, and while there is no current threat of a human outbreak, the researchers suspect it is capable of interspecies transmission.

The ranks of the ebolavirus genus have grown for the first time in a decade, with the identification of a new strain in free-tailed bats in Sierra Leone. It is not yet known if it is harmful to humans, but its discovery will assist efforts to understand how the virus hides between outbreaks

An experimental Ebola vaccine, not yet officially licensed for human use, has been engaged in the newly spreading outbreak after a request from the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to access this potentially life-saving new vaccine.

For those directly involved in managing the 2014 Ebola epidemic, it remains a harrowing reminder of how unprepared we are to cope with a sudden outbreak. The global coalition CEPI aims to correct this. ​

The World Health Organization (WHO) last year reported some very promising signs during the early stages of a trial involving an Ebola vaccine called rVSV-ZEBOV, and now the final results are in, confirming a 100 percent protection rate from the deadly disease. ​