NIH Study Finds No Evidence of Accelerated Ebola Virus Evolution in West Africa

According to a recent report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the current strain of the Ebola virus that is circulating through West Africa is called the Makona strain and is less aggressive than the original Mayinga strain that, which was isolated in Central Africa in 1976.

When compared to the Mayinga strain, the Makona strain takes approximately two additional days to start terminal disease in an animal subject. This is an important discovery to scientists, as they wonder whether the Ebola strain in West Africa will grow more severe over time.

The test subjects were cynomolgus macaques. Researchers used these animals to model disease and infection in humans. The scientists infected three macaques with the Mayinga strain from 1976 and an additional three with the Makona strain from 2015.

 

 Ebola virus, isolated in November 2014 from patient blood samples obtained in Mali. The virus was isolated on Vero cells in a BSL-4 suite at Rocky Mountain Laboratories.
Credit: NIAID RML