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West Africa

Lassa ecology mapPress ReleasesPublications

Lassa virus ecology study out in Nature Comms

New analysis by scientists at Scripps Research and University of Brussels finds that climate change and other factors could soon make deadly Lassa fever a much bigger public health problem in Africa. In the study, which appeared on September 27, 2022, in Nature Communications, scientists analyzed decades of environmental data associated with Lassa virus outbreaks, revealing temperature, rainfall and the presence…
October 3, 2022
Cell abstractPublications

Ebola paper in Cell

In a recent study published in Cell together with colleagues from UMass Worcester and the Broad, we show how a single mutation that occurred during the 2013-2016 Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa increased the ability of the virus to infect human cells. The mutation occurred in the Ebola virus glycoprotein and is located in the receptor binding domain of…
November 22, 2016
Nature paperPublications

Review on Ebola evolution in Nature

The 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was of unprecedented size and devastation, but also stands a landmark for infectious disease genomics. By sequencing virus genomes directly from patient samples, scientists are now able to investigate how viruses evolve, transmit between individuals, and spread across country borders during outbreaks, directly informing infection control. (more…)
October 12, 2016
Publications

Roots, Not Parachutes

Infectious disease outbreaks continue to pose challenges to global health and security, prompting reactive countermeasures. Recently, severe outbreaks of Ebola and Zika virus were designated by the World Health Organization as “Public Health Emergencies of International Concern.” Other emerging viral pathogens have warranted similar attention, including virus outbreaks from Lassa, Chikungunya, avian influenza, Nipah, SARS, and MERS. (more…)
June 30, 2016