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Newswise — LA JOLLA, CA—New research in the journal Nature Communications gives scientists an important window into how Ebola virus replicates inside host cells. The study, led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), reveals the inner workings of “viral factories,” clusters of viral proteins and genomes that form in host cells.
The research team, which included experts from Scripps Research and UC San Diego School of Medicine, found that Ebola virus’s replication machinery forms fascinating microscopic structures that become viral factories. By understanding the architecture and function of these microscopic manufacturing hubs, researchers may be closer to developing new therapies that interrupt the Ebola virus life cycle and prevent severe disease.
“We are imaging these fluid and dynamic assembly centers for the first time. Understanding how they work and what they require gives us the information needed to defeat them,” says LJI President and CEO Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., senior author of the new study.
What is a viral factory?
Scientists first spotted what would turn out to be “virus factories” in virus-infected animal cells back in the 1960s, but they didn’t know what they were seeing. Within a sea of normal cellular proteins, these areas looked like fuzzy splotches.
“People had already seen that Ebola-infected cells had these ‘inclusions,’” says LJI Postdoctoral Researcher Jingru Fang, Ph.D., first author of the new study. For a long time, scientists thought of these “inclusions” as helpful visual indicators of infection, without understanding their true purpose. “But in fact, these ‘inclusion bodies’ actively gather an enormous quantity of viral proteins and viral RNAs.”
Many viral pathogens, including rabies virus and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) form inclusions in host cells, Fang explains. “Recent studies suggest that these cellular inclusions are the site where viruses make their RNA genomes. They are ‘viral factories’ with actual functional purpose: to offer a secured space for viral RNA synthesis,” says Fang. “The process of viral RNA synthesis involves flux of viral building blocks. This means molecules gathered inside viral factories should be able to move freely rather than being static.”
For the new study, Saphire, Fang and their colleagues wondered: Can we observe the movement of viral building blocks directly in living cells?
Fang began by tagging a viral protein called VP35 with a fluorescent marker that makes the protein glow in the dark. VP35 is a critical component of the viral factory and is important for viral RNA synthesis (and the making of new copies of Ebola virus). Working with imaging experts in the LJI Microscopy and Histology Core, Fang followed the glowing proteins in live cells, which express a simplified and non-infectious version of Ebola viral factories.
Under the microscope, Fang and colleagues could indeed see and even measure how molecules move inside the viral factories formed in host cells. This finding added evidence that viral proteins are clumping together like droplets so they can churn out the proteins needed to help the virus replicate. Those mysterious inclusions really are viral factories. The researcher dubbed these “droplet-like” viral factories.
Then the scientists saw something odd. Some of the glowing proteins didn’t gather into clumps. Instead, they joined up with a smattering of other viral proteins, creating a fluorescent swirl that evoked van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” These trails of viral proteins still had the right ingredients to replicate Ebola virus, so the scientists dubbed them “network-like” viral factories.
“These are two different flavors of the viral factory,” says Fang. “People have mostly focused on the droplet-like form, which is the majority, and not paid too much attention to this other form.”
Besides their shapes, there was a key difference between the two factories. It appeared the network-like factories had the right ingredients for the incoming Ebola virus to express its genes, but they didn’t actually produce virus progenies.
A multi-tasking machine
Next, the researchers looked at a key player in infection: a protein called virus polymerase. Polymerase is a multifunctional nanomachine that comes with the virus. This machine not only copies the Ebola virus genomic material, it also transcribes the viral genome into messenger RNAs, which instruct infected cells to produce loads of viral proteins. The researchers wanted to understand how this viral machine functions inside viral factories.
Ebola virus polymerase is already known as a hard-working protein—all Ebola viral proteins have to be. Ebola virus is a highly efficient pathogen because it gets by with just seven genes (humans have more than 20,000 genes). Saphire has led research showing that Ebola virus survives by making proteins that can transform and take on different jobs during the course of infection.
Just last year, Saphire, Fang, and collaborators published a related discovery that viral polymerase actually harnesses a druggable human protein to help the virus replicate its genome. The team reported that while polymerase is essential for viral replication, the polymerase doesn’t actually jump into action until infection is well underway.
This work was important for understanding how polymerase stepped into action, but scientists also needed to know where polymerase was active. Fang knew it would be important to look at what polymerase might be up to in viral factories.
The researchers discovered that polymerase actually builds its own special structures inside viral factories. Many copies of polymerase gather in small bundles, called foci. The researchers found that these bundles spread out when a droplet-like viral factory starts replicating viral material.
Scientists aren’t sure exactly why polymerase needs to form bundles before it can do its job, but the spatial arrangement of the bundles must be important. As Fang points out, the idea of many small components coming together to build a structure isn’t a new concept in nature. “You can use a beehive or coral reef as the analogy to help understand why a specific spatial arrangement is important for a biological system to function,” she says.
With this finding, scientists now know how to find different kinds of viral factories and how polymerase organizes itself down on the factory floor.
Fighting back
More than 30 human pathogens are known to assemble viral factories inside host cells, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and even rabies virus. With this new view of Ebola’s viral factories, the scientists are curious whether other viruses construct similar forms of viral factories—and whether other viruses use their own versions of polymerase in the same way.
“If that’s true, maybe we can target the feature of viral factory formation that has been shared by multiple different viruses,” says Fang.
Going forward, Fang would also like to study how Ebola virus forms viral factories in different kinds of host cells. Do these viral factories look different in cells from animals (such as the virus’s natural hosts, the fruit bats) that can carry the virus around without getting sick? “Can we find some explanation for host-specific viral pathogenesis?” she asks.
The new study also demonstrates the importance of collaboration across San Diego’s Torrey Pines Mesa. The LJI team worked closely with Scripps Research Professor Ashok Deniz, Ph.D., and UC San Diego Professor Mark H. Ellisman, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research.
“The combination of state-of-the-art tools available on the Torrey Pines Mesa allowed us to combine the biophysical characterization with the human health insight,” says Saphire
Additional authors of the study, “Spatial and functional arrangement of Ebola virus polymerase inside phase-separated viral factories,” include Guillaume Castillon, Sebastien Phan, Sara McArdle, Chitra Hariharan, and Aiyana Adams.
This study was supported by the National Institute of Health (grants NIH S10OD021831, R24GM137200, and S10OD021784), an Imaging Scientist grant (2019‐198153) from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LJI institutional funds, and the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Fellowship.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39821-7
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About La Jolla Institute
The La Jolla Institute for Immunology is dedicated to understanding the intricacies and power of the immune system so that we may apply that knowledge to promote human health and prevent a wide range of diseases. Since its founding in 1988 as an independent, nonprofit research organization, the Institute has made numerous advances leading toward its goal: life without disease. Visit lji.org for more information.
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Title 42, the United States pandemic rule that had been used to immediately deport hundreds of thousands of migrants who crossed the border illegally over the last three years, has expired. Those migrants will have the opportunity to apply for asylum. President Biden’s new rules to replace Title 42 are facing legal challenges. The US Homeland Security Department announced a rule to make it extremely difficult for anyone who travels through another country, like Mexico, to qualify for asylum. Border crossings have already risen sharply, as many migrants attempted to cross before the measure expired on Thursday night. Some have said they worry about tighter controls and uncertainty ahead. Immigration is once again a major focus of the media as we examine the humanitarian, political, and public health issues migrants must face.
Below are some of the latest headlines in the Immigration channel on Newswise.
Expert Commentary
Experts Available on Ending of Title 42
George Washington University Experts on End of Title 42
‘No one wins when immigrants cannot readily access healthcare’
URI professor discusses worsening child labor in the United States
Biden ‘between a rock and a hard place’ on immigration
American University Experts Available to Discuss President Biden’s Visit to U.S.-Mexico Border
Title 42 termination ‘overdue’, not ‘effective’ to manage migration
Research and Features
A study analyses racial discrimination in job recruitment in Europe
DACA has not had a negative impact on the U.S. job market
ASBMB cautions against drastic immigration fee increases
Study compares NGO communication around migration
Collaboration, support structures needed to address ‘polycrisis’ in the Americas
TTUHSC El Paso Faculty Teach Students While Caring for Migrants
Immigrants Report Declining Alcohol Use during First Two Years after Arriving in U.S.
How asylum seeker credibility is assessed by authorities
Training Individuals to Work in their Communities to Reduce Health Disparities
‘Regulation by reputation’: Rating program can help combat migrant abuse in the Gulf
Migration of academics: Economic development does not necessarily lead to brain drain
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected immigration?
Immigrants with Darker Skin Tones Perceive More Discrimination
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Ugandan authorities have officially declared the end of a recent Ebola outbreak after 42 consecutive days with no new cases.
A formal declaration was made during a televised ceremony held in the central Mubende district, the epicenter of the outbreak, on Wednesday.
According to the World Health Organisation, an Ebola outbreak is over if there are no new cases after 42 days, which is twice the incubation period.
“Today, 11th January 2023 marks 113 days since the start of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,” said the health minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero.
“I urge the population to remain vigilant, implement the standard operating procedures and to report any person in the community that presents with Ebola-like symptoms,” she stressed.
The outbreak, the eighth in Ugana’s history, killed 55 people, said Aceng Ocero. There were a total 143 confirmed cases and 22 probable cases, she added.
To combat the outbreak, officials launched aggressive contact-tracing to track down relatives and friends who handled the bodies of victims or attended funerals.
Some escaped from quarantine facilities, others traveled as far as the capital Kampala, and a few visited traditional healers and witchdoctors for treatment instead.
Cases were eventually confirmed in nine districts, including Kampala, according to the health ministry.
The Ebola virus is transmissible – but not as transmissible as some other infectious diseases, like Covid-19. It can spread from person to person through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, semen or feces, or through contaminated objects like bedding or needles.
Ebola symptoms include fever, aches and pains, and fatigue, which then can progress to diarrhea, vomiting and unexplained bleeding.
In 2012 an outbreak in the Kibaale district in the west of the country led to 17 deaths out of 24 confirmed cases, but was declared over in less than three months.
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Editor’s Note: Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC from 2009-2017, oversaw responses to the H1N1 influenza, Ebola and Zika epidemics, is President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, and Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Precious Matsoso is the former Director-General of the South African National Department of Health and was the World Health Organisation Director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property. Precious Matsoso is currently the Director of the Health Regulatory Science Platform, a division of the Wits Health Consortium and an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of the Witwatersrand.
CNN
—
In late June of this year, Ghana’s health authorities received some disturbing news: Two cases of viral hemorrhagic fever were detected in the country. Blood samples from the infected individuals came back positive for Marburg virus, a deadly disease that can kill most of those infected.
The outbreak triggered emergency response efforts across all levels of government in Ghana. Nearly 200 contacts were identified and interviewed. Health care workers were reminded how to keep themselves and their patients safe from Marburg infection. Volunteers in the community with no medical background were trained to recognize signs of the disease, refer people with suspected Marburg infection to the appropriate authorities and deliver information to the community to help reduce disease threats.
Following these efforts, no further cases were detected. After a conservative waiting period, the outbreak was declared over on September 16.
Why didn’t this story make headlines? Because it was an epidemic that didn’t happen.
The public and the media tend to focus on what’s going wrong: Covid-19, monkeypox, polio, and now Ebola. But this focus obscures what is happening on the ground, every day: Local and national public health workers and epidemiologists, or “disease detectives,” around the world are stopping outbreaks in their tracks and preventing epidemics.
To celebrate these efforts, Resolve to Save Lives has issued its second report on “Epidemics That Didn’t Happen.” The new report details six outbreaks that were stopped in 2021 – stories that otherwise would not make headlines but that offer valuable insights into what public health can and does do right. The case studies show what is possible when local, state and national communities mobilize a whole-of-society effort to prevent epidemics.
One lesson that stands out is that, because outbreaks begin and end in communities, well-coordinated action at the local level is crucial. Rabies is nearly always fatal, and after one tragic case in Tanzania, public health workers joined with community leaders to make sure that every other exposed person received the vaccine, saving lives. Without sensitive community engagement, more children would have died. When local efforts are supported by national and local government, we can stop and prevent epidemics.
Another lesson is the substantial return on investment we can realize by prioritizing and funding preparedness efforts. The 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak claimed more than 11,000 lives and cost the global economy an estimated $53 billion. To prevent another devastating loss of lives and livelihoods, Guinea coordinated substantial improvements to its health security at national and subnational levels. It established the National Agency for Health Security and one national and 38 district-level emergency operation centers. The country also hired and trained public health doctors and others in outbreak response. Then, when an Ebola outbreak emerged in January 2021, the country was ready to coordinate a strong response. The outbreak was declared over with just 23 cases because Guinea made sustained investments to prepare for the next health threat.
Finally, there is a crucial role that coordination among local, state and federal agencies plays in epidemic prevention. Following an outbreak of Nipah virus in Kerala, India in 2018 that saw 18 cases – 17 of which were fatal – state officials identified gaps in response efforts and improved them. When a case was identified in the state in 2021, officials across local, district, state and national bodies immediately convened to plan and execute response measures. Within days, officials identified 240 contacts, tested fruit bats (reservoirs of the virus) in the affected area and conducted a risk communication campaign with the public. This outbreak began and ended with just the single index case.
These case studies demonstrate what can happen – and what won’t happen – when countries invest in and prioritize preparedness so they are ready to act quickly and strategically when outbreaks strike. Offering a preview of what a public health renaissance could look like, they show what is possible when all levels of society work together to maintain a resilient health system built on pillars of community trust and equity.
These are important lessons as we continue to strengthen preparedness in the face of new diseases and as the World Health Organization considers a global pandemic treaty instrument to make our world better prepared. A pandemic treaty instrument that is driven by this country- and community-first experience and vision, and built on principles of solidarity and equity, has the potential to help countries greatly improve their preparedness for the next disease threat. And as our new report shows – preparedness is not only possible, it’s happening every day. To protect us all, the global community must consistently invest in preparedness and prioritize it with political and financial resources.
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Newswise — Research scientist Bobby Brooke Herrera, renowned for developing tools to accelerate diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, has joined Rutgers Global Health Institute.
Herrera, a Rutgers Presidential Faculty Scholar and an assistant professor of global health at the institute, conducts multidisciplinary research on epidemic viruses and infectious diseases and holds joint appointments in the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine and at the Child Health Institute of New Jersey. Both are part of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Herrera is known for his bench-to-bedside translational research. His laboratory at Rutgers focuses on understanding adaptive immunity against globally relevant pathogens that cause lethal human diseases and for which there are limited options for treatment or vaccination.
He has developed diagnostic testing related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease, the Zika virus, and the rare but often deadly Ebola virus disease. Collaborating internationally with research scientists in Brazil, Nigeria and Senegal, his academic and industry work has received more than $9 million in grant funding, including support from the National Institutes of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as venture capital financing.
Disease outbreak preparedness and response motivate and drive Herrera’s research, which incorporates approaches in epidemiology, immunology, molecular biology and virology. He seeks to uncover new knowledge about human immune responses that will spur fundamental advancements in disease diagnostic capabilities and vaccine design. Herrera is studying asymptomatic viral infections, which occur when an individual infected with a virus develops little to no symptoms of disease, to better understand the human antibody and T cell responses in such instances.
“I hope that my research group at Rutgers will contribute to a foreseeable expansion of vaccines or therapeutics for infectious diseases in the decades to come, with particular focus on deciphering at the molecular level what may make some antibodies or T cells more effective than others,” Herrera said. “There are many hypotheses as to why that happens and why some people develop disease symptoms and some remain asymptomatic. It could be genetics, immune status, environmental factors or reasons related to the virus itself. These are questions I’m interested in pursuing in my academic lab. The knowledge we produce can lead to better, more personalized diagnostics as well as more potent therapeutics for these viruses.”
Herrera has investigated various dynamics of asymptomatic human infections by mosquito-borne viruses, including the flaviviruses Zika and dengue as well as the alphavirus chikungunya. His findings indicated that human transmission of Zika and dengue viruses in Nigeria and Senegal occurred in absence of robust disease outbreaks. In Brazil, he tested a diagnostic tool he developed to distinguish between infections by distinct virus strains. Also in Nigeria, Herrera’s research demonstrated that individuals who experienced asymptomatic infections by Ebola virus could produce T cell responses that were greater in magnitude when compared with survivors of severe Ebola virus disease.
Herrera, originally from New Mexico, received a doctoral degree in biological sciences in public health at Harvard University and performed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. Since 2019, he served as a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He cofounded two biotechnology startup companies and was named to the “Forbes 30 under 30” list for health care in 2020.
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The Biden administration is racing to expand the number of U.S. labs that are able to test for the virus behind a swelling Ebola outbreak in Uganda, as health officials prepare for what they say remains an unlikely but real possibility that the virus could enter the country.
Most of the tests that were rolled out around the U.S. during a previous Ebola scare in 2014, which involved a strain known as Zaire Ebolavirus, were never authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to be used for diagnosing the Sudan strain, which is behind the current surge in Uganda.
“CDC has been very active on the domestic preparedness front and addressing exactly this issue of the lab testing has been a huge priority,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Mary Choi told a session at the ID Week conference last week.
A few weeks ago, only eight members of the publicly-funded Laboratory Response Network had the ability to test for the virus, Choi said.
That number has now risen to 22 labs across the network, a CDC spokesperson said Tuesday.
More than a hundred cases of the often deadly virus have been confirmed or suspected in Uganda, according to a tally by the CDC. Cases have been spotted in the nation’s capital city Kampala, which raises concerns about wider spread. More than two dozen deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September.
After an incubation period of up to three weeks, early Ebola symptoms — like fever and fatigue — can be difficult to distinguish from other infections. The disease then escalates to more dangerous symptoms, including severe diarrhea, bleeding and vomiting. Between 41% and 100% of reported cases in previous outbreaks of Sudan Ebolavirus have died, the World Health Organization estimates.
There is a vaccine that targets Zaire Ebolavirus, but it is not expected to work against the current strain. Some promising new vaccine candidates are expected to be deployed soon in Uganda in hopes of curbing the outbreak.
Travelers entering the U.S. after having spent time in outbreak-affected areas in Uganda are being screened by authorities at five airports around the country for symptoms, under a program to funnel travelers that was restarted a month ago.
They are then followed up by local health officials for at least three weeks after arriving at their destination, under guidance published earlier this month by the CDC.
Unlike Zaire Ebolavirus, there are no rapid test kits available to spot infections by Sudan Ebolavirus. Doctors must draw blood samples from patients suspected to have the virus, which are sent off to labs that can test for the strain.
Stacey Bateman/Department of Defense
Those test tubes can then be run through systems like the so-called “Warrior Panel” developed by the firm BioFire Defense.
“There is a lot of cross collaboration between agencies and CDC to make this happen,” Choi said, pointing to efforts like sending loaner BioFire systems to testing facilities and having weekly calls to help them ramp up.
Earlier this month, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response announced it would fund accelerating clearance of BioFire’s test by the FDA, which could allow more labs to use the system.
“A select number of labs dispersed throughout the US are able to test, but we aren’t able to say the exact number. CDC is also working to bring on additional labs,” Chris Mangal, director of preparedness and response for the Association of Public Health Labs, said in a statement.
The screening test itself takes around “an hour or so to run,” Mangal said. That does not account for the time it takes to process and confirm the samples by the CDC.
“At this point the most important thing is that we have a test and several labs around the nation that are able to test,” Mangal said.
The federal push to scale up U.S. testing capacity for Sudan Ebolavirus comes as authorities have been bracing for the “low” risk that an infected traveler could bring it into the country from Uganda.
“While they are working as quickly as they can to increase the number of laboratories that are able to test, as of today, that number is still very limited,” the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Vicki Herrera said at a town hall on October 21.
Herrera was speaking at a webinar hosted by the federally-funded National Emerging Special Pathogens Training & Education Center for frontline health care workers preparing to field potential Ebola patients.
“The best thing that you can do is to contact your local public health departments and they can help you determine what testing is available and where,” said Herrera.
The U.S. has awarded federal dollars to support a network of “regional treatment centers” prepared to isolate and treat patients with “special pathogens” like Ebola.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced it had awarded an additional $21 million to the hospitals and was adding a handful of new facilities to the nation’s “National Special Pathogen System.”
However, the responsibility for initially handling Ebola patients — at the airports or around the country — would likely fall first to a local hospital outside of this network.
For example, in New Jersey, officials in Essex County said that University Hospital in Newark will be tasked with responding to potential cases, if they are identified at nearby Newark Liberty International Airport.
James Moss, state hospital coordinator for the Virginia Department of Health, said in an email that hospitals in the counties around the state’s Dulles International Airport were rotating duties for handling potential cases from the CDC’s quarantine station at the airport.
“I will say that, in terms of Uganda and the risk right now, it is different than in West Africa,” Choi said, comparing it to the region where the 2014 outbreak was centered. “In West Africa, it was three large countries. The outbreak affected travel hubs. It had affected the capital. And we had a lot of travelers coming because you have three countries, right? So you had potentially a lot of travelers coming through.”
The U.S. is currently averaging about 140 passengers a day funneled to the five airports for evaluation, the CDC spokesperson said.
“That’s pretty low compared to what it was in West Africa. But despite that, I do think that CDC and other agencies have been very forward leaning on that,” added Choi.
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Johannesburg, South Africa — Two weeks ago, a 24-year-old man in Uganda felt ill. He went to a private clinic several times between September 11 and 13 with a high fever, convulsions, blood in his vomit, pain and swelling everywhere, and bleeding in his eyes.
He returned several times with the same symptoms, to report they were not improving. Local health officials finally referred him to the Regional Referral Hospital on September 15 and isolated him as a suspected case of viral hemorrhagic fever. Blood samples were taken that day, and eight days after he first went to the local Madudu clinic, he died. That same day, a lab confirmed he had the Sudan ebolavirus.
Health authorities sent a team to the village to investigate and found what World Health Organization officials have described as “a number” of community deaths attributed to an unknown illness.
Locals described a strange illness, with sudden deaths. According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials confirmed that some of those mysterious deaths were in people who had contact with the 24-year-old man. The deaths are now also classified as probable Sudan ebolavirus cases.
As of Wednesday, authorities still were not sure whether the 24-year-old man was the first person infected, or if the “index case” was one of the other people who died in the area.
“I see it getting worse before it gets better,” Dr. Christopher Mabula, who runs operations for the French charity Doctors Without Borders in East Africa, told CBS News on Wednesday.
BADRU KATUMBA/AFP/Getty
He said the 24-year-old man had visited three different health facilities servicing three different bordering districts before he died, vastly increasing his possible human contacts. The man’s village is also located near an active gold mine, and such sites typically draw a large number of workers from other regions, even from outside the country, with high turnover.
“Symptoms can take between two and 21 days to develop, and with Uganda’s excellent road infrastructure, newly infected people could travel in any direction for some time before becoming symptomatic,” noted the doctor.
Mabula said that would make tracing all known contacts significantly more difficult than it has been during previous Ebola outbreaks in neighboring Congo, where poor infrastructure makes it easier to contain cases.
Ugandan Ministry of Health Officials said Tuesday that a total of 36 cases, including 18 confirmed and 18 more listed as probable, had been reported. There were 23 deaths within that number, five among confirmed cases and 18 among probable ones. Officials have confirmed to CBS News separately that five people are confirmed to have died of Ebola during the current outbreak in Uganda. They say there are 19 other confirmed cases.
Uganda’s Medical Association said six of the confirmed cases were health care workers who have fallen critically ill after catching the virus while working with the known or probable cases. The head of the association said doctors and nurses were very concerned and at high risk of infection due to a lack of personal protective equipment.
Rosemary Byabashaija, the Mubende Resident District Commissioner who doubles as the head of the district’s Ebola taskforce, said authorities had tightened security at the hospital after rumors circulated that some patients suspected of having Ebola wanted to leave the isolation facility.
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, Uganda’s Minister of Health, said in a tweet on Wednesday morning that there were no confirmed cases of the virus in the capital Kampala, and she appealed for the public “to remain calm and vigilant.”
The WHO, Africa CDC and various NGOs have scrambled teams to the area to support Uganda’s Health Service.
President Yoweri Museveni addressed the nation Wednesday evening, ruling out lockdowns and other restrictions to movement as the country battles the outbreak. He sought to reassure his nation, stressing that the disease does not spread as easily as COVID-19, and can be controlled by avoiding contact, maintaining personal hygiene and seeking medical treatment as soon as symptoms are detected.
Sudan ebolavirus disease was first reported in Southern Sudan in June 1976. Seven outbreaks have been reported since: four in Uganda and three in neighboring Sudan. The deadliest outbreak in Uganda so far was in 2000, when more than 200 people died.
The virus is introduced into human populations through direct contact with infected animals. It spreads through bodily fluids including saliva and blood. Fruit bats, primates, forest antelope and porcupines have all been suspected carriers.
The virus incubates in humans for between two and 21 days and can only be spread once the carrier develops symptoms.
There are no licensed vaccines or therapies for the treatment or prevention of Sudan ebolavirus disease. According to the WHO, the ERVEBO vaccine, which has been used in recent responses to outbreaks of other Ebola strains, will not provide cross-protection for the Sudan virus.
There are six candidate vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus in different stages of development, but none are near the final phases of broad clinical trials. The WHO has said its research teams are in contact with all of the vaccine developers, in what the organization calls a “collaborative effort” to see if any are suitable for further evaluation during the current outbreak.
Health officials tell CBS News that the WHO, Africa CDC and other agencies are “talking” about the possibility of running some trials on people who have been admitted to hospitals in the country.
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