Abstract
Archaeology and Paleontology
Biocultural diversity has been conceptualised as the sum of the world's differences regarding biological diversity at all levels and cultural diversity in all its manifestations, and their interactions. The concept is often framed in the context of conservation as a retention versus loss model by emphasizing the religious and spiritual values of the natural environment and the positive interactions between traditional indigenous people and conservation of natural ecosystems and indigenous species. On the basis of our research amongst the ‘non-traditional’ amaXhosa in South Africa, we arguethat this interpretation is too narrow and that the concept needstobe reappraised in order to capture the dynamic, complex andrelational nature of biocultural diversity relations.
In the late 20th century, 300 Mauritanian shepherds travelled to the United Arab Emirates in order to tend the herds of some of that country’s most prominent leaders. These low-tech subjects of global migration flows were particularly valued and sought after by their Emirati employers for their expertise in raising camels. I analyse the forms and consequences of this migration, focusing on the reintegration of these shepherds into Mauritanian stratified tribal spheres following their return to the Sahara. The possibility of a change in their social status (after a financially rewarding experience in the Gulf) will be a central theme of this article.
The 145th symposium of the Wenner-Gren Foundation took place June 1–8, 2012, in HäringeSlott near Stockholm, Sweden. The primary goal of the symposium was to reframe discussions of behavioral evolution among Neanderthals and early modern humans. We hoped to replace conventions of a single scale of evolutionary progress (in which the primary benchmark is “modern human behavior”) with a more Darwinian framework that could allow for independent evolutionary trajectories in different areas. The 15 participants included archaeologists researching material culture and subsistence in Eurasia, Africa, and China; physical anthropologists; a demographer; a geneticist; modelers of cultural evolution; and a climatologist. Participants were asked to draw on evidence in their areas of expertise, focusing on evolutionary trends in both modal tendencies and levels of variation/diversity within various regions during the interval in which the Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic developed, spread, and eventually disappeared.
Hominins from Europe and Africa shed light on functional adaptations and other aspects of lifeways during the Middle Paleolithic. By the end of that time span, Neanderthals and modern humans clearly differed physically and perhaps behaviorally. Explanations of the anatomical differences have largely focused on adaptation (directional selection) to climate and habitual activity, but it is hard to rule out the alternative of genetic drift. Drift would have accelerated during periods of low population numbers, while selection operates best when populations are large and expanding. Demographic changes almost certainly tracked climatic conditions in both continents.
The Mediterranean-Red Sea region has been critical to dispersal of hominids and other species between Africa and the rest of the world, and climate and sea level are thought to be key controls on migration pathways. Assessing climate variations, we highlight increased millennial-scale variability at 480–460, 440–400, 380–360, 340–320, 260–220, 200–160, 140–120, and 80–40 thousand years ago (ka), which likely caused intermittent habitat fragmentation. We also find that passageways across the Sahara Desert and the northern out-of-Africa route (from Egypt into the Levant) were intermittently open during pluvials associated with orbital insolation maxima. No such relationship is apparent for the southern out-of-Africa route (across the Red Sea).
Arts (Dance, folklore, graphic arts, music, writing)
The article discusses the recently published memoir of South African radio celebrity RediTlhabi, Endings and Beginnings (2012), which is a bestseller in South Africa and recipient of the prestigious Alan Paton non-fiction award for 2013. Following Tlhabi’s haunting by the ghosts of her murdered father and her unlikely childhood friend, the Sowetan gangster Mabegzo, the article attempts totrace the meanings of ghostliness in the South African social, and the way in which these meanings are mapped onto township terrains of both hopelessness and possibility.
This article explores the figure of the good time girl as generated through discussions of young women’s sexualities in popular media platforms in Kenya. The article locates itself within a socio-historical space in which sexuality has always been debated through a dominant moral economy embedded within religious and traditional structures. It seeks to answer questions around how, within such a context, the figure of the good time girl can be understood in contemporary Kenya. In this regard, the article considers competing meanings of the good time girl within and beyond the inscriptions of heteropatriarchal ideals that attempt to normalize and fix the sexual identities of young women in Kenya.
This essay examines the “dangerous” role of women’s theater, as high-lighted in La Beauté de l'icône, Fatima Bourega-Gallaire’s play on the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. The play exposes the violence of the “black decade” and highlights the gendered aggressions that have scarred Algeria’s post-colonial imaginary in a radicalized economy of fear, terror, and censorship. La Beauté de l'icône is an intense enactment of another chapter in the history of the civil war—the numerous abductions and forced “disappearance” of civilians during a pathological and power-driven reign of terror initiated by armed militias and government security forces.
The idea that African discourse on the self evinces two distinct though related views of personhood (“metaphysical” and “normative”) has gained currency in recent years. Although both views are recognized, the normative view, rather than the metaphysical one, is held by many to be germane to African thought. I discuss an attempt by Ikuenobe to locate the normative view of personhood in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and to thereby glean support for it. I argue that Achebe’s fiction is mute on matters concerning personhood and offers no support whatsoever for the normative view.
In postcolonial discourse, religious missions are generally described as the benign mask of empire, the enemy of African cultures and freedoms. While that critique has been a necessary response to Western narratives of Africa’s salvation and to the very real role missions have played in colonial violence, it has also obscured their place within the anticolonial imagination. Drawing on the early novels and recently published autobiographical texts of Chinua Achebe and NgũgĩwaThiong’o, this essay demonstrates that while missions were surely implicated in colonialism, they have also been central to Africans’ own narratives of improvement ranging from the reformist to the radical, particularly when the horizon of improvement was decolonization.
Ecology (Flora, fauna, primates, environment)
Experiments were carried out at Lucknow (India) to standardize protocols for derivation of cuttings from rose-scented geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) plants and converting them into rooted propagules. The protocol could give more than 1,500 cuttings/plant in ∼16 weeks. The cuttings planted in polybags or in field plots over soil + FYM or NPK developed into rooted propagules suitable for field cropping in 6 weeks. The field-produced propagules were suitable for planting in areas near their production, and the propagules produced in polybags were suitable for planting both locally and for transporting to distant locations geranium planting.
The negligible levels of energy-related GHG emissions attributable to the Southern African sub-region translates into the sub-region contributing relatively little towards global climate change. Notwithstanding, the member states comprising the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are among the most vulnerable to the trans boundary effects of global climate change. Existing SADC climate change policy documents highlight the important role of the energy sector in climate change mitigation. Furthermore, various international, African Union and SADC legal instruments stress the crucial role of harmonised law and policy as climate change adaptive measure.
The harvest of chondrichthyan species (sharks, skates, rays and chimaeras) has broadly been identified as the greatest current threat to their diversity and abundance, with risk from commercial and industrial fisheries outweighing that of artisanal and subsistence harvests. Chondrichthyans are of conservation concern. They exhibit life history traits that bestow on most a low intrinsic rate of population growth, rendering them less able to withstand fishing mortality than the earlier-maturing, shorter-lived and more fecund bony fishes (teleosts) with which they are frequently caught.
Simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV) causes a severe and almost uniformly fatal viral hemorrhagic fever in Asian macaques, but is thought to be nonpathogenic for humans. To date, the SHFV lifecycle is almost completely uncharacterized on the molecular level. Here we describe the first steps of the SHFV lifecycle. Our experiments indicate that SHFV enters target cells by low pH-dependent endocytosis. Dynamin inhibitors, chlorpromazine, methyl-β-cyclodextrin, chloroquine, and concanamycin A dramatically reduced SHFV entry efficiency, whereas the macropinocytosis inhibitors EIPA, blebbistatin, and wortmannin, and the caveolin-mediated endocytosis inhibitors nystatin and filipin III had no effect. Simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV) causes highly lethal disease in Asian macaques resembling human illness caused by Ebola or Lassa viruses. However, little is known about SHFV’s ecology, molecular biology, and the mechanism by which it causes disease. Results of this study shed light on how SHFV enters its target cells. Using electron microscopy and inhibitors for various cellular pathways, we demonstrate that SHFV invades cells by low pH-dependent, actin-independent endocytosis, with the likely help of a cellular surface protein.
As the Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues and cases appear in the United States and other countries, the need for long-lasting vaccines to preserve global health is imminent. Here, we evaluate the long-term efficacy of a respiratory and sublingual (SL) adenovirus-based vaccine in non-human primates in two phases. In the first, a single respiratory dose of 1.4 × 10 9 infectious virus particles (ivp)/kg of Ad-CAGoptZGP induced strong Ebola-glycoprotein (GP) specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses and Ebola GP-specific antibodies in systemic and mucosal compartments and was partially (67%) protective from challenge 62 days after immunization. The same dose given by the SL route induced Ebola GP-specific CD8+ T cell responses similar to those induced by intramuscular (IM) injection, however, the Ebola GP-specific antibody response was low. All primates succumbed to infection. To our knowledge, this is the first time that durable protection from a single dose respiratory recombinant adenovirus-based Ebola vaccine has been demonstrated in primates.
Bats are a major source of new and emerging viral diseases. Despite the fact that bats carry and shed highly pathogenic viruses including Ebola, Nipah and SARS, they rarely display clinical symptoms of infection. Host factors influencing viral replication are poorly understood in bats and are likely to include both pre- and post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. MicroRNAs are a major mechanism of post-transcriptional gene regulation, however very little is known about them in bats. MicroRNAs are likely to play major roles in regulating virus-host interaction in bats, via dampening of inflammatory responses (limiting the effects of immunopathology), and directly limiting the extent of viral replication, either through restricting the availability of essential factors or by controlling apoptosis.
Understanding the mechanism allowing species to coexist in local communities remains one of the major topics in community ecology. Niche theory states that there are limits in similarity of co-occurring species. The order Chiroptera is well suited to test this fundamental hypothesis, because bats often represent the most species-rich and ecologically diverse group, particularly in the tropics, of locally occurring mammals. However, due to their often relatively small size and nocturnal lifestyle, ecological information on the local assemblage is difficult to obtain.
There is a growing consensus in early hominin studies that savannas did not play a significant role in the emergence of human evolutionary processes. Early hominins have been reported to be associated with densely wooded environments and sometimes forest, thereby reducing the importance of a shift from closed to open ecosystems in shaping these processes. In the second half of the twentieth century, two versions of the savanna hypothesis emerged: one depicted savannas as grasslands, the other as seasonal mosaic environments.
Juniperus sp. (Cupressaceae) is found throughout the Mediterranean region, from Morocco east to Turkey and Egypt and on the mountains of western Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea, Portugal, and the Canary Islands (11). J. phoenicea grows in Egypt in Sinai near the Red Sea (Yelleg, Halal and Maghara mountains) in rocky ridges, the Mediterranean region, extending to Central Arbia.
Two historical records of the springbok (Antidorcasmarsupialis) made by Thomas Baines, the well-known English artist, naturalist and traveller, in April 1848 in part of the northeastern Eastern Cape, have escaped attention. These records, together with two archeological records from the same area, provide additional insights into the occurrence of this ungulate in the region during earlier times.
Large carnivores are key foci for conservationists, tour operators and hunters alike. They provide revenue-generating opportunities, but also can be keystone species in conservation areas, influencing the maintenance of biological diversity. They often degrade livelihoods of people when coming into conflict with livestock land-uses. We acknowledge these challenges specifically for cases where large carnivores are present in small areas and propose an alternative strategy to the traditional carrying capacity approaches, directed at managing the effects of large carnivores.
The appropriation and adoption of aesthetics that retain close relation to the past is one notable reason for the survival of the drinking horn and its associated rituals in the Grassfields. Not only are foreign aesthetics such as images of Bruce Lee and flower design depicted on cow horns to associate the horns with the notion of the wilderness, typical of Grassfields carvings, but it is claimed that without the representation of aspects of the wilderness on drinking horns, the production and exchange of the drinking horn would certainly cease to exist. In other words, the survival of traditional ways and means of producing and exchanging the drinking horn in the Grassfields is a result of the continuous appropriation and adoption of foreign aesthetics that are faithful to the ancestral values of the region.
Nucleation, leading to the formation of tropical forest patches in open areas, has occurred in many parts of the world. This study examined the role of Ficusnatalensis as a nucleus and estimated seed dispersers in the nucleation process. Seed rain and post-dispersal fate of Syzygiumguineense ssp. afromontanum (a common forest tree species) under eight F. natalensis crowns were compared with those in other woodland microsites. In addition, focal observations of frugivore were conducted at F. natalensis in the woodlands and S. guineense ssp. afromontanum in the forest, when both species were fruiting.
Identifying the regions where wild animal populations could transmit the Ebola virus should help with efforts to prepare at-risk areas for future outbreaks.
The size and stability of large herbivore populations is dependent upon the ability to adapt to strong inter-annual and inter-seasonal variation in forage quantity and quality, while minimizing the risk of predation. During the wet-season extra demands on females by rapidly maturing foetuses and for lactation after calving result in elevated demands not only for protein and energy but also for minerals such as Ca, Mg, Na and P. During the late dry-season nutrient and energy levels in forage generally decline to below maintenance levels in most habitats but this is associated with reduced demand for these resources outside the wet-season period of calving and lactation.
Severe drought causes many shallow water bodies to dry up, forcing resident and migratory birds to take refuge elsewhere, sometimes close to human settlements. A drought associated with global warming can influence the geographica distribution of waterfowl and waterbirds. For example, those species dependent on soda lakes for survival, including the Lesser Flamingo (Phoenicopterus minor). The present study describes the importance of the two small lakes for waterbird conservation.
Ebola virus (EBOV) infection in humans and non-human primates (NHPs) is highly lethal, and there is limited understanding of the mechanisms associated with pathogenesis and survival. Here, we describe a transcriptomic analysis of NHPs that survived lethal EBOV infection, compared to NHPs that did not survive. It has been previously demonstrated that anticoagulant therapeutics increase the survival rate in EBOV-infected NHPs, and that the characteristic transcriptional profile of immune response changes in anticoagulant-treated NHPs. In order to identify transcriptional signatures that correlate with survival following EBOV infection, we compared the mRNA expression profile in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from EBOV-infected NHPs that received anticoagulant treatment, to those that did not receive treatment. We identified a small set of 20 genes that are highly confident predictors and can accurately distinguish between surviving and non-surviving animals. In addition, we identified a larger predictive signature of 238 genes that correlated with disease outcome and treatment; this latter signature was associated with a variety of host responses, such as the inflammatory response, T cell death, and inhibition of viral replication.
Ensuring the sustainability of bushmeat consumption is critical for both biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation in tropical developing countries, yet we know little about the role of hunting and bushmeat consumption in the daily lives of rural communities. We provide the first detailed, qualitative examination of bushmeat hunting activities conducted by a rural community within one of Madagascar’s new, multiple-use protected areas, in order to inform appropriate management strategies. Results suggest that most species are eaten, but that few are favoured above domestic meat. Hunting is generally a secondary pursuit, carried out opportunistically during the course of other activities, although its importance does increase in times of food stress.
An analysis, the first of its kind in Namibia, was conducted on five years’ (2006–2010) Aircraft–wildlife collision (AWC) records from two Namibian airports. These records were compared to AWC reports of three Namibian airlines. Trends in annual and seasonal occurrence of AWCs and species responsible for collisions were investigated. A total of 55 and 73 AWC incidents were reported at Hosea Kutako and Eros airports, respectively. No year-on-year trends in reported AWC incidents could be established, with the highest percentage recorded in the first year (37% of all records).
Management plays a crucial role in the conservation of endangered animals. Ex situ conservation breeding represents, for some species, the only way to ensure their survival and maintenance of their genetic resources. In particular, rare and endangered species are vulnerable to management decisions taken without adequate knowledge of their ecology and behavior.
Adaptation is increasingly planned and funded to reduce negative impacts of climate change for vulnerable social groups; however, vulnerable groups have the least capacity to adapt. Adaptation is therefore unlikely to produce socially sustainable or equitable outcomes. Six adaptation processes on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, are modeled with logistic regression to identify their determinant factors. Most adaptations simply reproduce unsustainable patterns of social vulnerability rooted in unequal access to land and other resource entitlements. A few exceptions are observed, where low costs, widely accessible knowledge, and community groups with cross-scale social networks enabled vulnerable social groups to implement adaptations.
Using logistic and multiple regression analyses, this article examines the socioeconomic factors that influence farmers’ decisions to adopt on-farm tree planting, one of the agroforestry techniques promoted by government agencies and research institutions for use in the farming systems of Uganda. A household survey involving 200 farmers was carried out in the Subcounties of Kabamba, Mugarama, Kagadi, and Kiryanga in Kibaale District, western Uganda. From the analyses, we found out that a farmer's decision to adopt on-farm tree planting is influenced by household and field characteristics.
The UNESCO Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai and Evirons World Heritage Site, known as the Cradle of Humankind (−25.948938°S; 27.784395°E) in South Africa, is known for its numerous fossil sites but little is known regarding its current carnivore diversity. Occasionally a leopard (Pantherapardus) attack will make the news and a leopard den was examined in 2000, while local ranchers and farm managers’ report a high number of black-backed jackals (Canismesomelas) in the area. In addition, brown hyaenas (Hyaenabrunnea) are frequently sighted by locals.
In the wild, frugivorous birds experience a constantly changing set of available diet options and a consequent variation in overall nutrient availability. Dietary needs vary with the demands of the breeding season, moulting and for many, migration. This study seeks to test the hypothesis that seasonal shifts in avian frugivore diets will track reproductive nutritional needs rather than fruiting patterns. A positive result will imply that avian frugivores are choosing a fruit diet based on nutritional needs rather than simple availability.
First records of elephant numbers in Zimbabwe estimated the national herd at 4000 head in the 1900s. Numbers increased substantially to 17,000 by the mid 1940s and records of the migration of the Hwange elephant population into northern Botswana were begun in the 1960s. Aerial counts, first implemented in 1967, put the national population at 89 000 in 2001 when a first national census was undertaken and >100,000 head in 2004 withabout 15% of the country's elephant population living outside of protected areas in direct contact with subsistence farmers).
In order to successfully conserve the South African marine environment and its diversity of life, it is essential to understand the biology, systematics and behaviour of the marine biota. Though South Africa is rich in aquatic species, little is known about the diversity and distribution of marine invertebrates, especially copepods that are symbiotic with different hosts ranging from invertebrates to marine mammals. Most of the symbiotic copepods infecting fishes and elasmobranchs are represented by members of the Siphonostomatoida which currently consists of 39 known families. There are about 210 chondrichthyan species in South Africa and they are probably infected with a large diversity of symbiotic siphonostomatoids.
This article elaborates a relational historical geography of human, chimpanzee and elephant populations, working mainly from precolonial and early colonial (nineteenth and twentieth century) narratives by travelers to regions now corresponding to parts of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. It then compares a global ‘West African trade’ model of human and animal population's spatial distribution with elements of an ‘East African settlement colony’ model drawn from other historical research.
This study assesses the social, economic and environmental impacts and trade-offs of investment in tobacco in two districts in the Miombo woodlands of Malawi. Socioeconomic impacts were analyzed for stakeholder groups differentially affected by large-scale tobacco cultivation: those losing land to estates, those employed on estates, small-scale growers selling to the estates and small-scale wood suppliers. Tobacco growers emerge the biggest beneficiaries from the expansion of tobacco, with real returns among smallholders depending on the extent to which tobacco cultivation constricts or boosts other livelihood activities. Those losing land to tobacco estates are the major losers: efforts to recuperate their livelihoods prove less than adequate to offset the costs of land loss.
The common warthog, PhacochoerusAfricanus, is endemic to the northern, northeastern and eastern parts of South Africa, though isolated pockets do occur in the Eastern Cape Province through their introduction into reserves. They also occur naturally in the neighbouring countries to the north and west of South Africa. Historical records indicate that an extinct species, the Cape warthog (Phacochoerusaethiopicus), occurred naturally in the southern region of South Africa, including the Free State Province.
Managers of reintroduced lion (Pantheraleo) populations in small reserves (<1000 km2) in South Africa are challenged by high rates of population increase and how best to control them. We combined data from 14 small, fenced reserves to evaluate growth rate parameters and compared them to those in larger and/or open reserves. Growth rates of lions in small fenced reserves were only matched by those in Nairobi National Park (NP), which is relatively small and where the majority of the subadults emigrated away from the park. Initially, South African managers unconsciously mimicked this system by removing subadults to control population numbers, but increasingly chose euthanasia and hunting in the past decade, as the demand for wild lions for translocation decreased.
Managers of African lions (Pantheraleo) on reserves where they have been reintroduced increasingly face challenges associated with ecological regulation, genetic degradation and increased susceptibility to catastrophic events. The Lion Management Forum (LiMF) was formed in 2010 to define these challenges and explore possible solutions with the view to developing appropriate management guidelines. LiMF bases its recommendations on the ecologically sound premise that managers should, as far as possible, mimic natural processes that have broken down in reserves, using proactive rather than reactive methods, i.e. management should focus on causal mechanisms as opposed to reacting to symptoms.
The preferred habitat of giraffes is woodland savanna. In this habitat, group sizes are small, the home range is larger than predicted from metabolic needs, and distances between group members are large: most groups (75%) comprise fewer than six individuals and intraspecific distances within the group can be 1 km. Small group size means that the ‘many eyes’ vigilance a large herd provides is not available to giraffe and large intraspecific distances within a group probably require high visual acuity. Thus giraffes should be able to detect movement, shapes and coat patch patterns at relatively long distances if they are to achieve predator avoidance, detection of competitors, mate selection and group member contact in their habitat.
BST2/tetherin inhibits the release of enveloped viruses from cells. Primate lentiviruses have evolved specific antagonists (Vpu, Nef, and Env). Here we characterized tetherin proteins of species representing both branches of the order Carnivora. Comparison of tiger and cat (Feliformia) to dog and ferret (Caniformia) genes demonstrated that the tiger and cat share a start codon mutation that truncated most of the tetherin cytoplasmic tail early in the Feliformia lineage (19 of 27 ammo acids, including the dual tyrosine motif).
Termites, through mound construction and soil particle redistribution, act as ecosystem engineers, altering soil physical properties, nutrient availability, hydrology and topography which can ultimately influence local plant richness, plant spatial distribution and vegetation dynamics. These changes have potential to influence browse selection by mammalian herbivores in savanna woodlands where termite mounds are an important feature of the landscape. For example, in the miombo woodlands of central Zimbabwe. Loveridge and Moe (2004).
Fidelity to particular sites has been documented in many species of wide-ranging waterfowl. In general, site fidelity in birds is often associated with higher survivorship and lifetime breeding success. The hypothesized benefit of such site fidelity is that individuals become familiar with particular sites and the resources they provide, and are not continually confronted with novel environments that require ‘exploration’.
Bivalve molluscs of the family Solenidae, generally known as razor shells, are important worldwide because of their large local/periodical abundance. Ecologically, they play a critical role as infaunal filter-feeders in shallow estuarine and coastal waters, where they also act as a food source for a large variety of bottom predators. Most of the approximately 70 species currently described are edible and some have high commercial value in international markets.
Lloviu virus (LLOV), a phylogenetically divergent filovirus, is the proposed etiologic agent of die-offs of Schreibers’s long-fingered bats (Miniopterusschreibersii) in western Europe. Studies of LLOV remain limited because the infectious agent has not yet been isolated. Here, we generated a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus expressing the LLOV spike glycopotein (GP) and used it to show that LLOV GP resembles other filovirus GP proteins in structure and function. LLOV GP must be cleaved by endosomal cysteine proteases during entry, but is much more protease-sensitive than EBOV GP. The EBOV/MARV receptor, Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1), is also required for LLOV entry, and its second luminal domain is recognized with high affinity by a cleaved form of LLOV GP, suggesting that receptor binding would not impose a barrier to LLOV infection of humans and non-human primates. The use of NPC1 as an intracellular entry receptor may be a universal property of filoviruses.
Bushmeat hunting (the hunting of wildlife for food or income) is considered one of the world’s most pressing conservation problems. Understanding how conservation efforts affect people’s decision-making and hence why some people choose to comply with wildlife management regulations while others continue to hunt illegally is important in order to improve the effect of conservation efforts. In theory, conservation efforts can provide incentives compatible with protection and sustainable use of wildlife through a number of individual or combined mechanisms.
Mistletoes comprise a diverse group of hemiparasitic flowering plants that have become specialized to access nutrients and water from host trees via a haustorium. Mistletoes vary widely in their degree of host specificity, ranging from extreme specialists that parasitize a single host species to generalists that use many different host species with no apparent infection difference among host species. In some mistletoe species, host infection varies geographically such that at a given location a mistletoe species may infect only part of its potential host set.
Bats are sources of high viral diversity and high-profile zoonotic viruses worldwide. Although apparently not pathogenic in their reservoir hosts, some viruses from bats severely affect other mammals, including humans. Examples include severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, Ebola and Marburg viruses, and Nipah and Hendra viruses. Factors underlying high viral diversity in bats are the subject of speculation. We hypothesize that flight, a factor common to all bats but to no other mammals, provides an intensive selective force for coexistence with viral parasites through a daily cycle that elevates metabolism and body temperature analogous to the febrile response in other mammals. On an evolutionary scale, this host-virus interaction might have resulted in the large diversity of zoonotic viruses in bats, possibly through bat viruses adapting to be more tolerant of the fever response and less virulent to their natural hosts.
The genome annotations of rhesus (Macacamulatta) and cynomolgus (Macacafascicularis) macaques, two of the most common non-human primate animal models, are limited. For two important macaque species, we uncovered thousands of novel isoforms and un-annotated intergenic transcripts including coding and non-coding RNAs, polyadenylated and non-polyadenylated transcripts. This resource will greatly improve future macaque studies, as demonstrated by their applications in infectious disease studies.
Due to their dietary plasticity and ecological adaptability, the leopard, Pantherapardus, is the most successful and wide-ranging large felid in Africa. Leopards often inhabit areas greatly modified by people or within close proximity to human settlements. Consequently, leopards are frequently regarded as opportunistic generalists, exhibiting wide habitat tolerances and resilience to anthropogenic threats. However, research is beginning to reveal their specialized foraging behaviour.
Without an approved vaccine or treatments, Ebola outbreak management has been limited to palliative care and barrier methods to prevent transmission. These approaches, however, have yet to end the 2014 outbreak of Ebola after its prolonged presence in West Africa. Here we show that a combination of monoclonal antibodies (ZMapp), optimized from two previous antibody cocktails, is able to rescue 100% of rhesus macaques when treatment is initiated up to 5 days post-challenge. High fever, viraemia and abnormalities in blood count and blood chemistry were evident in many animals before ZMapp intervention. Advanced disease, as indicated by elevated liver enzymes, mucosal haemorrhages and generalized petechia could be reversed, leading to full recovery. ELISA and neutralizing antibody assays indicate that ZMapp is cross-reactive with the Guinean variant of Ebola. ZMapp exceeds the efficacy of any other therapeutics described so far, and results warrant further development of this cocktail for clinical use.
Bats (Chiroptera) are the only mammals naturally able to fly. Due to this characteristic they play a relevant ecological role in the niches they inhabit. These mammals spread infectious diseases from enzootic to domestic foci. Rabies, SARS, fungi, ebola and trypanosomes are the most common pathogens these animals may host. We conducted intensive sampling of bats from the phyllostomidae, vespertilionidae and emballonuridae families in six localities from Casanare department in eastern Colombia. Blood-EDTA samples were obtained and subsequently submitted to analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear genetic markers in order to conduct barcoding analyses to discriminate trypanosome species.
Central Africa is a “hotspot” for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) of global and local importance, and a current outbreak of ebolavirus is affecting multiple countries simultaneously. Ebolavirus is suspected to have caused recent declines in resident great apes. While ebolavirus vaccines have been proposed as an intervention to protect apes, their effectiveness would be improved if we could diagnostically confirm Ebola virus disease (EVD) as the cause of die-offs, establish ebolavirus geographical distribution, identify immunologically naive populations, and determine whether apes survive virus exposure.
The degradation of grassland habitats worldwide has prompted an increased interest in the development of management strategies which foster habitat heterogeneity. Heterogeneity, the degree of difference among a set of elements, is recognized as the ultimate source of biodiversity and should thus form the basis of ecological management and conservation. However, this term is broad and can have many meanings. To apply this concept in real world systems the context in which it is useful must be specified. In the context of grassland ecosystems heterogeneity is variability in vegetation structure, composition, density and biomass and influences species diversity, available habitat and ecosystem function.
The movement of organisms is considered a complex process that depends on the individual’s ability to perform tasks, as well as the nature of the landscape in which it moves. Understanding movement ecology is important for a number of reasons; most importantly it is seen as a crucial component of climate change, habitat fragmentation, biological invasions and the spread of pests and diseases (Nathan, 2008). Foraging movements are important as they influence the spatial distribution as well as genetic structure of plant populations. By understanding the movements of organisms in and around human populations, we may be in a better position to understand the effect humans have on wildlife populations.
How new species evolve is one of biology’s great questions. Ever since Darwin first proposed that speciation occurs slowly by selection on natural variation, evolutionary biologists have tried to identify the mechanisms and processes that contribute to divergence. Many studies of evolutionary model organisms have focused on morphological adaptations to different habitats and ecologies. However, sensory systems also play a key role in speciation through sexual selection. Visual communication is particularly important for mate choice among the cichlid fishes of the Great African lakes.
Cilrulluscolocynthis (Cucurbitaceae) is commonly called bitter apple, Indian wild gourd, or bitter cucumber. It is a perennial herbaceous egusi, native of tropical Africa and highly drought-tolerant. Productivity is enhanced during dry, sunny periods and reduced during periods of excessive rainfall and high humidity.
Banding and deploying tracking devices are important techniques to study birds of conservation concern, but require that individuals can be safely and efficiently caught and handled. We describe the trapping techniques used to catch Ludwig's Bustards (Neotisludwigii) in the Karoo, South Africa, for a satellite tracking programme aiming to better understand the movement biology of this poorly known and threatened bird. Trapping sites on transformed land used as congregation sites were difficult to locate for these nomadic and partially migratory birds, but six of nine prospective trapping trips were successful.
Termites constitute one of the most common categories of prey taken by lizards, particularly in desert ecosystems. Because they constitute a prey that is sedentary and clumped, as well as temporally and spatially unpredictable, termites are more regularly eaten by widely foraging lizards that have well-developed prey chemical discrimination abilities, than by sit-and-wait foragers that rely on vision to locate prey. In some widely foraging desert lizard species the diet may consist almost entirely of termites.
Economic goals form a critical component of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programs, but many studies question whether these initiatives actually deliver economic benefits to local communities. This presents a puzzle regarding why rural residents remain in CBNRM programs, and raises the possibility that non-economic incentives also influence participation. We address this question in a study of two Namibian communal conservancies, analyzing survey and interview data collected between 2009 and 2011. We find that economic incentives explain participation in one conservancy, whereas social motivations take precedence in the other.
In a world where the natural environment is being altered rapidly by the activities of a burgeoning human population, large predators (individuals with body mass greater than 21.5 kg which consume mainly meat; face increased competition for space and food in the remaining refuges they inhabit. As a consequence, understanding the resource requirements of large predators is imperative if we are to conserve these species. In the past decade, our understanding of large predators’ prey preferences have advanced from a conglomeration of single site studies with limited connectivity to a field dedicated to the meta-analysis of predator resource acquisition. These meta-analyses have given us insight into the patterns driving prey preference in the suit of large African predators.
Sport hunting may have severe behavioural consequences, and possibly conservation implications for wildlife populations. We used flight initiation distances by two herbivores, impala (Aepycerosmelampus) and greater kudu (Tragelaphusstrepsiceros) to assess the impacts of sport hunting on their flight behaviour. We compared Gwaai, a designated hunting area adjacent to Hwange National Park, a protected area in Zimbabwe. We aimed to estimate flight initiation distances (FIDs) for impala and kudu as this can be a good measure of hunting effect on behaviour. Our results suggest that impala and kudu are more flight prone in hunting areas than in non-hunting areas.
Guinea-Bissau farmers are replacing shifting cultivation with cashew (Anacardiumoccidentale) orchards in response to international and national economic and conservation policies, local social changes and perceived increasing climate instability. However, changes from relative food self-provisioning to full dependence on one cash crop and from a complex mosaic of agricultural fields, fallows and forest patches to a homogenous landscape of cashew agroforests impacts both the natural environment and livelihoods. This article on the demise of shifting cultivation in the tropics contributes to the growing body of scholarship on land use-cover change (LUCC) and its multiplex global, national and local drivers, varying across time and space.
Marburg virus (MARV) and the closely related filovirus Ebola virus cause severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever (HF) in humans and nonhuman primates with mortality rates up to 90%. There are no vaccines or drugs approved for human use, and no postexposure treatment has completely protected nonhuman primates against MARV-Angola, the strain associated with the highest rate of mortality in naturally occurring human outbreaks. Studies performed with other MARV strains assessed candidate treatments at times shortly after virus exposure, before signs of disease are detectable. These results represent the successful demonstration of therapeutic anti-MARV-Angola efficacy in nonhuman primates and highlight the substantial impact of an LNP-delivered siRNA therapeutic asa countermeasure against this highly lethal human disease.
Southern Africa is inhabited by 78species of raptors; 66 diurnal and 12 species of owls. These birds are important both ecologically and as environmental indicators. Nevertheless, over the past few decades there has been a widespread decline in the numbers of African raptors. The threats facing these birds include both deliberate and unintentional poisoning, shooting and other forms of direct persecution, power line electrocutions and collisions, impacts of roads and other infrastructure, land-use change and food shortages, disturbance during the breeding period drowning in farm reservoirs, and the illegal trade in body parts for bushmeat and indigenous medicine.
Most endangered species, and especially large felids, have suffered serious declines in their populations during recent decades. Hence the efficiency of the protection measures implemented can be questioned.
Knowledge of wildlife status is variable in West-Central Africa. Some species, such as lions (Pantheraleo), elephants (LoxodontaAfricana), and Cercopithecus monkey species (e.g. Cercopithecussclateri), have been widely studied whereas scientific literature is extremely poor concerning other species such as leopards (Pantherapardus), giraffes (Giraffacamelopardalis) or striped hyaenas (Hyaenahyaena).
Although network analysis has drawn considerable attention as a promising tool for disease ecology, empirical research has been hindered by limitations in detecting the occurrence of pathogen transmission (who transmitted to whom) within social networks. Using a novel approach, we utilize the genetics of a diverse microbe, Escherichia coli, to infer where direct or indirect transmission has occurred and use these data to construct transmission networks for a wild giraffe population (Giraffe camelopardalis). Individuals were considered to be a part of the same transmission chain and were interlinked in the transmission network if they shared genetic subtypes of E. coli.
Pseudoscorpions (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones) comprise a diverse and ancient group of some 3300 described species. They date back to the oldest known fossil (Dracocheladeprehendor) from the Paleozoic (374–380 Mya), which shares some features with living species of the superfamily Chthonioidea. Several species have been described from the Eocene and Oligocene periods of the Cainozoic, including one extinct species of the family Olpiidae, which includes the genus Horus.
The purposes of the study were to describe the vocal repertoire of the Red-crested Korhaan, (Lophotisruficrista) and the nature and intensity of male call rivalry during the breeding season. Many hours of field sound data were recorded and behavioural observations were recorded in the field. During the breeding season two or three adult male Red-crested Korhaans group together in close proximity to one another at established sites (∼2.4 ha), calling simultaneously and continuously, while performing aerial displays.
The composition, structure and distribution of forest trees in Ankarafa Forest in the Sahamalaza-llesRadama National Park, Madagascar, were evaluated to determine the influence of their fruiting on the seasonal feeding/foraging ecology of the mainly frugivorous, endemic blue-eyed black lemur (Eulemurflavifrons). Plots were sampled within the forest core and on the forest edges.
Infectious disease has only recently been recognized as a major threat to the survival of Endangered chimpanzees and Critically Endangered gorillas in the wild. One potentially powerful tool, vaccination, has not been deployed in fighting this disease threat, in good part because of fears about vaccine safety. Here we report on what is, to our knowledge, the first trial in which captive chimpanzees were used to test a vaccine intended for use on wild apes rather than humans. We tested a virus-like particle vaccine against Ebola virus, a leading source of death in wild gorillas and chimpanzees. The vaccine was safe and immunogenic. Captive trials of other vaccines and of methods for vaccine delivery hold great potential as weapons in the fight against wild ape extinction.
Populations of large carnivorous birds are restricted by two main factors: food and nest site availability. This is especially important if the birds rely on cavities that they do not excavate themselves for nests or roosts. The southern ground hornbill (SGH), Bucorvusleadbeateri, is the largest obligate cooperatively breeding bird species. The SGH has an average weight of 4 kg and lives in a stable social group of 2–11 individuals. In South Africa, each group occupies a territory covering approximately 100 km2. The birds nest in existing cavities in a tree or rock face where the alpha-female will lay one to two, rarely three, eggs, but only one will normally survive to fledging. Nestsites can be reused in successive breeding seasons, although breeding is often not annual.
Ebola virus (EBOV) transmission is currently poorly characterized and thought to occur primarily by direct contact with infectious material; however transmission from swine to nonhuman primates via the respiratory tract has been documented. Ebola is generally thought to be spread between humans though infectious bodily fluids. However, a study has shown that Ebola can be spread from pigs to monkeys without direct contact. Further studies have been hampered, because an economical animal model for Ebola transmission is not available. To address this, we established a transmission model in guinea pigs, and determined the mechanisms behind virus spread. The survival data, in addition to microscopic examination of lung and trachea sections, show that mucosal infection of guinea pigs is an efficient model for Ebola transmission. Virus spread is increased with longer contact times to an infected animal and is possible without direct contact between an infected and host, but can be stopped if infectious materials were absent. These results warrant consideration for the development of future strategies against Ebola transmission, and a better understanding of the parameters involved with virus spread.
Interactions between apex and mesopredators and their impacts on prey populations have been well documented, while the influence of apex predators such as lions on carrion availability and the subsequent impacts at lower trophic levels are not fully understood. Here we assess dietary overlap between two sympatric carnivores (brown hyaena, Parahyaenabrunnea, and black-backed jackal, Canismesomelas) in neighbouring reserves with and without apex predators (lions, Panthers leo, and wild dog, Lycaonpictus).
Bats harbor many viruses, which are periodically transmitted to humans resulting in outbreaks of disease (e.g., Ebola, SARS-CoV). Recently, influenza virus-like sequences were identified in bats; however, the viruses could not be cultured. This discovery aroused great interest in understanding the evolutionary history and pandemic potential of bat-influenza. Using synthetic genomics, we were unable to rescue the wild type bat virus, but could rescue a modified bat-influenza virus that had the HA and NA coding regions replaced with those of A/PR/8/1934 (H1N1). This modified bat-influenza virus replicated efficiently in vitro and in mice, resulting in severe disease. Our data indicate that the bat-influenza viruses recently identified are authentic viruses that pose little, if any, pandemic threat to humans; however, they provide new insights into the evolution and basic biology of influenza viruses.
The reports for Ebola virus Zaire (EBOV), Nipah virus, and Machupo virus (MACV) pathogenesis are timely. EBOV, Nipah virus, and MACV cause highly lethal infections for which no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed vaccines or therapies exist. Not only are there concerns that these agents could be used by those with malicious intent, but shifts in ecological distribution of viral reservoirs due to climate change or globalization could lead to more frequent infection within remote regions than previously seen as well as outbreaks in more populous areas. A limited number of cases have also arisen in the United State and Europe. With few treatment options for these deadly viruses, development of animal models reflective of human disease is paramount to combat these diseases. As an example of this potential, a new treatment compound, ZMapp, that had demonstrated efficacy against EBOV infection in nonhuman primates (NHPs) received an emergency compassionate use exception from the FDA for the treatment of 2 American medical workers infected with EBOV, and they are currently virus free and recovering.
Economics (Theory, technology, political economy, colonialism, development)
This article examines the ways that gender experts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, relate to global gender policies and to current approaches to problems of gender in their country. Drawing upon critical, feminist, and actor-oriented approaches in development studies, we reflect on the high level of convergence between the global policy aims and interlocutors’ opinions about appropriate target areas and approaches to gender in development.
The economic feasibility of maize flour and maize meal fortification in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia is assessed using information about the maize milling industry, households’ purchases and consumption levels of maize flour, and the incremental cost and estimated price impacts of fortification. Premix costs comprise the overwhelming share of incremental fortification costs and vary by 50% in Kenya and by more than 100% across the three countries. The estimated incremental cost of maize flour fortification per metric ton varies from $3.19 in Zambia to $4.41 in Uganda.
Labour market processes in Tanzania constitute an important but an under-researched topic. This study investigates the recruitment methods of private companies in Mwanza, Tanzania’s second largest city. It asks whether employers make use of informal methods more often than formal methods, whether the skills required for a job relate to the choice of methods and whether the vacancy period of a position is linked to a specific approach. A survey consisting of 81 face-to-face interviews with hiring authorities shows that employers prefer informal to formal schemes but tend to rely on formal ones for filling high-ranking positions. Statistically, no influence of the recruitment method on the vacancy period could be found.
This paper describes West African farming practices and knowledge that lead to the formation of carbon-rich high-fertility African Dark Earths (AfDE) – human-made soils analogous to Amazonian terra preta, yet subject to continuing production and use. Gender relations and women’s roles are central to how these soils are produced and used. Through social and ecological field studies in Liberia and Sierra Leone we detail how AfDE formation and associated knowledge is gender-differentiated, the central roles of women’s deposition of charred organic materials from cooking, oil palm processing and potash production in producing AfDE, and the gendered dynamics of AfDE use and distribution in the landscape. Different species are cultivated in AfDE compared to non-anthropogenic soils, and AfDE are differentially valued by women and men for horticultural and tree crops.
We investigate the complex relationship between small-scale farming, urban-rural remittances and rural development. We highlight a successful, innovative self-reliance approach in which traditional farmers changed their mode of production, improved their income, and enhanced rural development, including urbanization, in Shubbola village of western Sudan. The major initial driver was investment from remittances by family members who had migrated to urban centers, thus overcoming the problem of access to credit/capital. Consequently, the increased use of tractor technology helped farmers overcome agricultural labor shortages, and increase their farm size and productivity.
Partnership is the overarching framework for development cooperation, but it has been criticized for furthering priorities of the North, rather than those of the South. This article discusses partnership in Tanzania with a special focus on policy making to enhance rights and gender equality. The late 1990s have been described as an era when successful partnerships ensured laws friendly to women, but our analysis of policy making in the 2010s shows that the process consumes far more time now and is harder to accomplish.
A reassessment of the institution of pawnship in Africa for the period from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century tightens the reference to situations in which individuals were held as collateral for debts that had been incurred by others, usually relatives. Contrary to the assumptions of some scholars, pawnship was not related to poverty and enslavement for debt but rather to commercial liquidity and the mechanisms by which funds were acquired to promote trade or to cover the expenses of funerals, weddings, and religious obligations. A distinction is made, therefore, between enslavement for debt and pawnship.
We examined whether mobile pastoralists in the Logone floodplain of Cameroon distribute themselves according to the ideal free distribution (IFD), which predicts that the number of individuals in each area is proportional to the quality and quantity of resources in each area and that all individuals have access to the same amount of resources. We used the concept to assess the distribution of grazing pressure over available common-pool resources as evidence of a complex adaptive system in which the spatial distribution grazing pressure is adjusted to the distribution of resources through individual decision making and passive coordination of movements among individual pastoralists.
This article examines the long-term impact of Ujamaavilligization on peri-urban areas of Kinondoni District, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. President Julius K. Nyerere’s aim had been to initiate an agrarian social reformation, introducing modern technological innovations and social services to a predominantly rural population while tapping into existing perspectives congruent with his view of “traditional” African society. But the implementation of this policy in Dar es Salaam’s periphery resulted in outcomes that were in many ways opposite to Nyerere’s ideals and counterintuitively served as a catalyst for the expansion of the city into its peri-urban hinterland.
This article discusses the hybridism of the Ethiopian developmental state through an analysis of the local interface between the state and the peasantry. The aim is to explore to what extent bureaucratic rationality both conditions and perverts the procedures employed in the implementation of public rural development policies, in this case agricultural extension. And to what extent development policies can operate as an instrument of power that reinforces the local disempowerment of the most vulnerable peasants. The article makes a detailed analysis of the machinery of agricultural extension, the local conditions of distribution and reception of fertiliser and improved seeds in rural Ethiopia.
This article provides an ethnographic insight into how the daily reality of state performance along the South Sudanese most Southern border of MagwiCounty are an outcome of negotiations between traders and state officials. It is argued that the ‘practical norms' of taxation, meaning the actual rules that govern the actions of state officials, are largely framed by the way in which state officials and traders are embedded in different networks. The analysis distinguishes between regional trade networks of survival based on associative ties that appropriate elements of state performance and SPLM/A authority into their business practices, and local trade networks of survival based on communal ties that relate to state performance more through the informal institutions of kinship and subsistence security.
To make good decisions about the future direction of cities we need data to contextualize and make recommendations that are based on past results and potential models for the future. Yet access to information including geographic information systems (GIS) is challenging, particularly as data are often seen as a commodity or source of power by those who control it, a dynamic more severe in contexts like Kenya. By generating GIS data for our own transportation model and then sharing them with those interested in doing research on Nairobi, we experienced firsthand some of the power dynamics associated with accessing and generating information in the developing country context.
Ethnohistory
Ethnographic revisits have become an increasing practice in the social sciences, designed to advance the understanding of history through the linking of micro processes and societal structures. In this article I revisit my study of Zambianisation on the Copperbelt, conducted between 1968 and 1972. The methodology of the extended case method is used first to re-present the original study and then to reassess it critically in terms of what has happened over the last 40 years. Four types of revisit are considered: revisit as refutation of the original study, revisit as an approach to historical change, revisit as comparative analysis, and revisit as reconstructing social theory.
Linguistics
Based on data from the Coffin Texts, Wolfgang Schenkel has proposed that the mostly uniform written forms of the Earlier Egyptian s
Medical Studies (Fertility, diet, disease, genetics, adaptation)
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and can have clinical fatality rates of ∼60%. The EBOV genome consists of negative sense RNA that encodes seven proteins including viral protein 40 (VP40). VP40 is the major Ebola virus matrix protein and regulates assembly and egress of infectious Ebola virus particles. It is well established that VP40 assembles on the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane of human cells to regulate viral budding where VP40 can produce virus like particles (VLPs) without other Ebola virus proteins present. The mechanistic details, however, of VP40 lipid-interactions and protein-protein interactions that are important for viral release remain to be elucidated. Here, we mutated a loop region in the N-terminal domain of VP40 (Lysl27, Thrl29, and Asnl30) and find that mutations (K127A, T129A, and N130A) in this loop region reduce plasma membrane localization of VP40.
The fusion peptide of Ebola virus comprises a highly hydrophobic sequence located downstream from the N-terminus of the glycoprotein GP2 responsible for virus-host membrane fusion. The internal fusion peptide of GP2 inserts into membranes of infected cell to mediate the viral and the host cell membrane fusion. Since the sequence length of Ebola fusion peptide is still not clear, we study in the present work the behavior of two fusion peptides of different lengths which were named EBO17 and EBO24 referring to their amino acid length. The secondary structure and orientation of both peptides in lipid model systems made of DMPC:DMPG:cholesterol:DMPE (6:2:5:3) were investigated using PMIRRAS and polarized ATR spectroscopy coupled with Brewster angle microscopy. In this paper, we show that the secondary structure of the Ebola fusion peptide is reversibly flexible between α-helical and β-sheet conformations, this feature being dependent on its concentration in lipids, eventually inducing membrane fusion.
The importation of infectious diseases during a mass gathering may result in outbreaks. Infectious diseases associated with mass gatherings vary depending on the type and location of the mass gathering. The annual Hajj to Makkah in Saudi Arabia is one of the largest annual religious mass gatherings in the world. Preparation for the Hajj encompasses multiple sectors to develop comprehensive plans. These plans include risk assessment, utilizing existing medical infrastructure, developing electronic and paper-based surveillance activity, and the use of information technology. In this review, we describe key features of the preparedness for the 2014 Hajj and Umra, review the recent impact of emerging viruses such as Ebola in West Africa and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in affected countries, and highlight the updated requirements and the required vaccines.
Next-generation sequencing is now commonly used for a variety of applications in virology including virus discovery, investigation of quasispecies, viral evolution, metagenomics, and analyses of antiviral resistance. However, there are limitations with the current sample preparation methods used for deep sequencing of viral genomes, especially during de novo sequencing. For example, current methods are unable to capture the terminal sequences of viral genomes in an efficient and effective manner; data representing the 3' and 5' ends are typically insufficient. Methods such as Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends address this issue but these methods can be time consuming, may require some prior knowledge of the viral sequence, and require multiple independent procedures. The current study outlines a sample preparation technique that overcomes some of these shortcomings. The technique was tested on RNA samples from two different RNA viruses, Ebola virus and hepatitis C virus.
Containment level 4 (CL4) laboratories studying biosafety level 4 viruses are under strict regulations to conduct nonhuman primate (NHP) studies in compliance of both animal welfare and biosafety requirements. NHPs housed in open-barred cages raise concerns about cross-contamination between animals, and accidental exposure of personnel to infectious materials. To address these concerns, two NHP experiments were performed. One examined the simultaneous infection of 6 groups of NHPs with 6 different viruses (Machupo, Junin, Rift Valley Fever, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Nipah and Hendra viruses). The results support the concept that Ebola virus infection is self-contained in NHPs infected intramuscularly, at least in the present experimental conditions, and is not transmitted to naïve NHPs via an airborne route.
The British nurse who became the first person in the UK to contract the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone has pledged to return to the country.
The size, speed and potential reach of the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa presents a wake-up call to the research and pharmaceutical communities – and to federal governments – of the continuing need to invest resources in the study and cure of emerging infectious diseases.
A nurse who contracted Ebola virus disease while working in Sierra Leone has made a plea for more international support to halt the outbreak.
Nursing staff and other healthcare professionals at Hillingdon Hospital near Heathrow airport have taken part in an Ebola containment and treatment simulation exercise.
Nurses will start screening some passengers for the Ebola virus at Gatwick Airport and the Eurostar terminal in London this week.
Daniel Bausch has been assisting with patient care during the current Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa and – as part of a WHO-led international collaboration – is exploring the possible use of experimental therapies and vaccines. He tells Fiona Fleck why this outbreak is different.
With the outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EBD) accelerating in West Africa, public health authorities are urging frontline providers in the United States to be vigilant in questioning patients who present with a suspected infectious disease, and in adhering to infection control practices. Recent travel to West Africa and contact with others who may have been exposed to EVD are key points that need to be covered at triage, say experts. The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that mortality from the latest outbreak is 55%, although it is as high as 75% in Guinea. Health care workers are particularly vulnerable to EVD, with WHO noting that more than 250 workers in West Africa have contracted EVD and at least 120 have died from the disease. Experts say that one of the greatest times of risk for health care workers is while a patient is at triage because he or she has not yet been placed in isolation precautions.
There has clearly been a deluge of international press coverage of the recent outbreak of Ebolavirus in Africa and is partly related to the “fear factor” that comes across when one is confronted with the fact that once infected, not only is the speed of death in a majority of cases rapid but also the images of the cause of death such as bleeding from various orifices gruesome and frightening. The fact that it leads to infection and death of health care providers (10% during the current epidemic) and the visualization of protective gear worn by these individuals to contain such infection adds to this “fear factor”. Finally, there is a clear perceived notion that such an agent can be utilized as a bioterrorism agent that adds to the apprehension. Thus, in efforts to gain an objective view of the growing threat Ebolavirus poses to the general public, it is important to provide some basic understanding for the lethality of Ebolavirus infection. This virus infection first appears to disable the immune system (the very system needed to fight the infection) and subsequently disables the vascular system that leads to blood leakage (hemorrhage), hypotension, drop in blood pressure, followed by shock and death.
The coagulation cascade is activated during viral infections. This response may be part of the host defense system to limit spread of the pathogen. However, excessive activation of the coagulation cascade can be deleterious. In fact, inhibition of the tissue factor/factor VIIa complex reduced mortality in a monkey model of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Other studies showed that incorporation of tissue factor into the envelope of herpes simplex virus increases infection of endothelial cells and mice. Furthermore, binding of factor X to adenovirus serotype 5 enhances infection of hepatocytes but also increases the activation of the innate immune response to the virus.
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes severe viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and non-human primates, with a case fatality rate of up to 88% in human outbreaks. Over the past 3 years, monoclonal antibody (mAb) cocktails have demonstrated high efficacy as treatments against EBOV infection. One such cocktail is ZMAb, which consists of three mouse antibodies, 1H3, 2G4, and 4G7. Here, we present the epitope binding properties of mAbs 1H3, 2G4, and 4G7. We showed that these antibodies have different variable region sequences, suggesting that the individual mAbs are not clonally related. All three antibodies were found to neutralize EBOV variant Mayinga.
Ebola viruses (EBOV) can cause severe hemorrhagic disease with high case fatality rates. Currently, no vaccines or therapeutics are approved for use in humans. Ebola virus-like particles (eVLP) comprising of virus protein (VP40), glycoprotein, and nucleoprotein protect rodents and nonhuman primates from lethal EBOV infection, representing as a candidate vaccine for EBOV infection. Previous reports have shown that eVLP stimulate the expression of proinflammatory cytokines in dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages (Ms) in vitro. However, the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways through which eVLP induce innate immune responses remain obscure. In this study, we show that eVLP stimulate not only the expression of proinflammatorycytokines but also the expression of type I interferons (IFNs) and IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) in murine bone marrow-derived DCs (BMDCs) and MΦs. Our data indicate that eVLP trigger host responses through toll-like receptor (TLR) pathway utilizing 2 distinct adaptors, MyD88 and TRIF.
In March 2014, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of Zaire ebolavirus in a remote area of Guinea. The outbreak then spread to the capital, Conakry, and to neighboring countries and has subsequently become the largest epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) to date. From March 25 to April 26, 2014, we performed a study of all patients with laboratory-confirmed EVD in Conakry. Mortality was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included patient characteristics, complications, treatments, and comparisons between survivors and nonsurvivors. Of 80 patients who presented with symptoms, 37 had laboratory-confirmed EVD. Patients with EVD presented with evidence of dehydration associated with vomiting and severe diarrhea. Despite attempts at volume repletion, antimicrobial therapy, and limited laboratory services, the rate of death was 43%.
In March 2014, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of a communicable disease characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high fatality rate in Guinea. Virologic investigation identified Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) as the causative agent. Full-length genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that EBOV from Guinea forms a separate clade in relationship to the known EBOV strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. Epidemiologic investigation linked the laboratory-confirmed cases with the presumed first fatality of the outbreak in December 2013. This study demonstrates the emergence of a new EBOV strain in Guinea.
Drug resistance threatens tuberculosis (TB) control, particularly among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected persons. We describe practices in the prevention and management of drug-resistant TB under antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs in lower-income countries. The capacity to diagnose and treat drug-resistant TB was limited across ART programs in lower-income countries. Directly observed therapy was not always implemented and drug supplies were regularly interrupted, which may contribute to the global emergence of drug resistance.
The authors studied the epidemiological, clinical, and outcome features of the Ebola virus disease in patients hospitalized at the Ebola treatment center (ETC) in Conakry to identify clinical factors associated with death. The first Ebola outbreak in Conakry was characterized by the young age of patients, discrete hemorrhagic signs related to lethality. Its control relies on a strict use of preventive measures.
Griffithsin (GRFT) is a red-alga-derived lectin that binds the terminal mannose residues of N-linked glycans found on the surface of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), HIV-2, and other enveloped viruses, including hepatitis C virus (HCV), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). and Ebola virus. GRFT displays no human T-cell mitogenic activity and does not induce production of proinflammatory cytokines in treated human cell lines. However, despite the growing evidence showing the broad-spectrum nanomolar or better antiviral activity of GRFT, no study has reported a comprehensive assessment of GRFT safety as a potential systemic antiviral treatment. The results presented in this work show that minimal toxicity was induced by a range of single and repeated daily subcutaneous doses of GRFT in two rodent species, although we noted treatment-associated increases in spleen and liver mass suggestive of an antidrug immune response.
A recent study by Gire et al. (2014) identifies differences that make the 2014 West Africa Ebola virus unique and details how the virus spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone. This work highlights the power of new genomic technologies to facilitate rapid public health and scientific responses to the crisis.
Because of its lethality, the Ebola virus often appears to be an invincible adversary. In Nature, Qiu et al. (2014) recently described the complete protection of nonhuman primates from deadly Ebola virus disease, even when treatment was begun as late as 5 days after infection.
The Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Ward in Sierra Leone, directed since 2005 by Dr. Sheikh Humarr Khan, is the only medical unit in the world devoted exclusively to patient care and research of a viral hemorrhagic fever. When Ebola virus disease unexpectedly appeared in West Africa in late 2013 and eventually spread to Kenema, Khan and his fellow healthcare workers remained at their posts, providing care to patients with this devastating illness. Khan and the chief nurse, MbaluFonnie, became infected and died at the end of July, a fate that they have sadly shared with more than ten other healthcare workers in Kenema and hundreds across the region. This article pays tribute to Sheik Humarr Khan, MbaluFonnie and all the healthcare workers who have acquired Ebola virus disease while fighting the epidemic in West Africa.
Ebola virus (EBOV) is a highly virulent human pathogen. Recovery of infected patients is associated with efficient EBOV-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) responses, whereas fatal outcome is associated with defective humoral immunity. As B-cell epitopes on EBOV are poorly defined, we sought to identify specific epitopes in four EBOV proteins (Glycoprotein (GP), Nucleoprotein (NP), and matrix Viral Protein (VP)40 and VP35). For the first time, we tested EBOV IgG+ sera from asymptomatic individuals and symptomatic Gabonese survivors, collected during the early humoral response (seven days after the end of symptoms) and the late memory phase (7–12 years post-infection). The B-cell epitopes we identified in the EBOV VP35, VP40, NP and GP proteins may represent important tools for understanding the humoral response to this virus and for developing new antibody-based therapeutics or detection methods.
Within the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa, separate scenarios reflect old contexts with well-known strategies to face the epidemic on one side and completely new and unprecedented situations requiring new approaches on the other side. While Senegal and Nigeria represent success stories on the implementation of appropriate standard public health measures for containment, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea require a major and innovative scale of actions to halt even more catastrophic consequences.
In July 2014, as the Ebola virus disease (Ebola) epidemic expanded in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, an air traveler brought Ebola to Nigeria and two American health care workers in West Africa were diagnosed with Ebola and later medically evacuated to a U.S. hospital. New York City (NYC) is a frequent port of entry for travelers from West Africa, a home to communities of West African immigrants who travel back to their home countries, and a home to health care workers who travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients. Ongoing transmission of Ebolavirus in West Africa could result in an infected person arriving in NYC. The announcement on September 30 of an Ebola case diagnosed in Texas in a person who had recently arrived from an Ebola-affected country further reinforced the need in NYC for local preparedness for Ebola.
We crosslink hemoglobin (Hb), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and carbonic anhydrase (CA) to form a soluble polyHb-SOD-CAT-CA nanobiotechnological complex. The obtained product is a soluble complex with three enhanced red blood cell (RBC) functions and without blood group antigens. Lyophilized poly-Hb-SOD-CAT-CA can be heat pasteurized at 68 F for 2 h. This can be important if there is a need to inactivate human immunodeficiency virus, Ebola virus, and other infectious organisms.
The discovery and development of methods for isolation, characterisation and taxonomy of viruses represents an important milestone in the study, treatment and control of virus diseases during the 20th century. Indeed, by the late-1950s, it was becoming common belief that most human and veterinary pathogenic viruses had been discovered. However, at that time, knowledge of the impact of improved commercial transportation, urbanisation and deforestation, on disease emergence, was in its infancy. From the late 1960s onwards viruses, such as hepatitis virus (A, B and C) hantavirus, HIV, Marburg virus, Ebola virus and many others began to emerge and it became apparent that the world was changing, at least in terms of virus epidemiology, largely due to the influence of anthropological activities. Subsequently, with the improvement of molecular biotechnologies, for amplification of viral RNA, genome sequencing and proteomic analysis the arsenal of available tools for virus discovery and genetic characterization opened up new and exciting possibilities for virological discovery.
Over the last few months, a plethora of headlines have focused on the ebola epidemic sweeping West Africa. On 8 August 2014 this outbreak was defined as a Public Health Event of International Concern by the World Health Organization. Closer to home the focus has been on the possibility of an outbreak in the UK, with calls for specialist nurses to be trained in monitoring travellers at airports. The recent infection of a nurse from Sussex while caring for patients with ebola in Sierra Leone has heightened the interest and need for information on this until now neglected tropical disease. Additionally, an unprecedented collaborative effort to speed up trials on the development of a vaccine has just begun in Oxford. This article discusses the origins of the virus, its symptoms and its modes of transmission. The challenges of managing the virus are discussed, together with current progress on its treatment and prevention, and the implications for nurses in the UK.
Ebola virus, described in 1976 in Zaire, causes severe hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate in humans and nonhuman primates. Epidemics occurred since this time to nowadays in Sudan, Gabon, Congo and currently in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. Specific treatment and vaccine are not available. So, to prevent the virus transmission with live and dead patients, we must use strict individual and collective measures which are not always understood by local populations and make contact tracing; it is the only way to curb the epidemic.
Ebola virus (EBOV) belongs to the group of nonsegmented negative-sense RNA viruses. The seven EBOV genes are separated by variable gene borders, including short (4- or 5-nucleotide) intergenic regions (IRs), a single long (144-nucleotide) IR, and gene overlaps, where the neighboring gene end and start signals share five conserved nucleotides. The unique structure of the gene overlaps and the presence of a single long IR are conserved among all filoviruses. Here, we sought to determine the impact of the EBOV gene borders during viral transcription. We show that readthrough mRNA synthesis occurs in EBOV-infected cells irrespective of the structure of the gene border, indicating that the gene overlaps do not promote recognition of the gene end signal. However, two consecutive gene end signals at the VP24 gene might improve termination at the VP24-L gene border, ensuring efficient L gene expression. We further demonstrate that the long IR is not essential for but regulates transcription reinitiation in a length-dependent but sequence-independent manner.
The Ebola virus (EBOV) genome only encodes a single viral polypeptide with enzymatic activity, the viral large (L) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase protein. However, currently, there is limited information about the L protein, which has hampered the development of antivirals. Therefore, antifiloviral therapeutic efforts must include additional targets such as protein-protein interfaces. Viral protein 35 (VP35) is multifunctional and plays important roles in viral pathogenesis, including viral mRNA synthesis and replication of the negative-sense RNA viral genome. Previous studies revealed that mutation of key basic residues within the VP35 interferon inhibitory domain (IID) results in significant EBOV attenuation, both in vitro and in vivo. In the current study, we use an experimental pipeline that includes structure-based in silico screening and biochemical and structural characterization, along with medicinal chemistry, to identify and characterize small molecules that target a binding pocket within VP35.
This article outlines a research program for an anthropology of viral hemorrhagic fevers (collectively known as VHFs). It begins by reviewing the social science literature on Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa fevers and charting areas for future ethnographic attention. We theoretically elaborate the hotspot as a way of integrating analysis of the two routes of VHF infection: from animal reservoirs to humans and between humans. Drawing together recent anthropological investigations of human-animal entanglements with an ethnographic interest in the social production of space, we seek to enrich conceptualizations of viral movement by elaborating the circumstances through which viruses, humans, objects, and animals come into contact. We suggest that attention to the material proximities-between animals, humans, and objects-that constitute the hotspot opens a frontier site for critical and methodological development in medical anthropology and for future collaborations in VHF management and control.
One of the challenges of writing an editorial addressing current events is that it may no longer be current by the time the editorial is printed. However, I suspect Ebola will continue to be a topic in the news for a long time. As I write this, I'm sitting approximately 15 miles away from the hospital where they announced this morning the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who was the first individual with a confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. It was not a surprise that Ebola has come to the North American shores, but the furor was dramatic.
Ebola is a highly dangerous infection and its management requires a great many resources. The recent outbreak of the virus has occurred in a rural area of West Africa with little medical infrastructure and technology, and few health facilities and professionals.
Understanding human filovirus hemorrhagic fever (FHF) clinical manifestations and evaluating treatment strategies require the collection of clinical data in outbreak settings, where clinical documentation has been limited. Currently, no consensus among filovirus outbreak-response organisations guides best practice for clinical documentation and data transfer. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with health care workers (HCWs) involved in FHF outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa, and with HCWs experienced in documenting and transferring data from high-risk areas (isolation wards or biosafety level 4 laboratories). Methods for data documentation and transfer were identified, described in detail and categorised by requirement for electricity and ranked by interviewee preference. Some methods involve removing paperwork and other objects from the filovirus disease ward without disinfection. We believe that if done properly, these methods are reasonably safe for certain settings. However, alternative methods avoiding the removal of objects, or involving the removal of paperwork or objects after non-damaging disinfection, are available.
The most protracted and complicated epidemic of Ebola virus disease to date, and the first in Western Africa, began with the report of 49 cases in Guinea on March 22, 2014 (Baize, 2014).
Sustainable approaches to crises, especially non-trauma-related public health emergencies, are severely lacking. At present, the Ebola crisis is defining the operational public health skill sets for infectious disease epidemics that are not widely known or appreciated. Indigenous and foreign medical teams will need to adapt to build competency-based curriculum and standards of care for the future that concentrate on public health emergencies. Only by adjusting and adapting specific operational public health skill sets to resource poor environments will it be possible to provide sustainable prevention and preparedness initiatives that work well across cultures and borders.
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea lack the public health infrastructure, economic stability, and overall governance to stem the spread of Ebola. Even with robust outside assistance, the epidemiological data have not improved. Vital resource management is haphazard and left to the discretion of individual Ebola treatment units. Only recently has the International Health Regulations (IHR) and World Health Organization (WHO) declared Ebola a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, making this crisis their fifth ongoing level 3 emergency. In particular, the WHO has been severely compromised by post-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) staffing, budget cuts, a weakened IHR treaty, and no unambiguous legal mandate. Population-based triage management under a central authority is indicated to control the transmission and ensure fair and decisive resource allocation across all triage categories.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is an often-fatal disease caused by a virus of the Filoviridae family, genus Ebolavirus. Initial signs and symptoms of the disease are nonspe-cific, often progressing on to a severe hemorrhagic illness. Special Operations Forces Medical Providers should be aware of this disease, which occurs in sporadic outbreaks throughout Africa. Treatment at the present time is mainly supportive. Special care should be taken to prevent contact with bodily fluids of those infected, which can transmit the virus to caregivers.
Filoviral hemorrhagic fever (FHF) is caused by ebolaviruses and marburgviruses, which both belong to the family Filoviridae. Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettusaegyptiacus) are the most likely natural reservoir for marburgviruses and entry into caves and mines that they stay in has often been associated with outbreaks of MVD. On the other hand, the natural reservoir for ebola viruses remains elusive; however, handling of wild animal carcasses has been associated with some outbreaks of EVD. In the last two decades, there has been an increase in the incidence of FHF outbreaks in Africa, some being caused by a newly found virus and some occurring in previously unaffected areas such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, in which the most recent EVD outbreak occurred in 2014. Indeed, the predicted geographic distribution of filoviruses and their potential reservoirs in Africa includes many countries in which FHF has not been reported.
Recombinant viral vectors provide an effective means for heterologous antigen expression in vivo and thus represent promising platforms for developing novel vaccines against human pathogens from Ebola to tuberculosis. An increasing number of candidate viral vector vaccines are entering human clinical trials. The Brighton Collaboration Viral Vector Vaccines Safety Working Group (V3SWG) was formed to improve our ability to anticipate potential safety issues and meaningfully assess or interpret safety data, thereby facilitating greater public acceptance when licensed.
In resource-limited areas, isolation of the sick from the population at large has been the cornerstone of control of Ebola virus disease (EVD) since the virus was discovered in 1976.1 Although this strategy by itself may be effective in controlling small outbreaks in remote settings, it has offered little hope to infected people and their families in the absence of medical care. In the current West African outbreak, infection control and clinical management efforts are necessarily being implemented on a larger scale than in any previous outbreak, and it is therefore appropriate to reassess traditional efforts at disease management.
The tremendous outbreak of Ebola virus disease occurring in West Africa since the end of 2013 surprises by its remoteness from previous epidemics and dramatic extent. This review aims to describe the 27 manifestations of Ebola virus that arose after its discovery in 1976. It provides an update on research on the ecology of Ebola viruses, modes of contamination and human transmission of the disease that are mainly linked to close contact with an infected animal or a patient suffering from the disease. The recommendations to contain the epidemic and challenges to achieve it are reminded.
The complex and unprecedented Ebola epidemic ongoing in West Africa has highlighted the need to review the epidemiological characteristics of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as well as our current understanding of the transmission dynamics and the effect of control interventions against Ebola transmission. Here we review key epidemiological data from past Ebola outbreaks and carry out a comparative review of mathematical models of the spread and control of Ebola in the context of past outbreaks and the ongoing epidemic in West Africa. We show that mathematical modeling offers useful insights into the risk of a major epidemic of EVD and the assessment of the impact of basic public health measures on disease spread. We also discuss the critical need to collect detailed epidemiological data in real-time during the course of an ongoing epidemic, carry out further studies to estimate the effectiveness of interventions during past outbreaks and the ongoing epidemic, and develop large-scale modeling studies to study the spread and control of viral hemorrhagic fevers in the context of the highly heterogeneous economic reality of African countries.
The global systems that sound the alarm on emerging epidemics such as Ebola need to be revamped (News October 1). The alerts were slow in coming and too late to cut off the epidemic at source.
Rapid, sensitive, and direct label-free capture and characterization of nanoparticles from complex media such as blood or serum will broadly impact medicine and the life sciences. We demonstrate identification of virus particles in complex samples for replication-competent wild-type vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), defective VSV, and Ebola- and Marburg-pseudotyped VSV with high sensitivity and specificity. Size discrimination of the imaged nanoparticles (virions) allows differentiation between modified viruses having different genome lengths and facilitates a reduction in the counting of nonspecifically bound particles to achieve a limit-of-detection (LOD) of 5 × 10(3) pfu/mL for the Ebola and Marburg VSV pseudotypes. We demonstrate the simultaneous detection of multiple viruses in a single sample (composed of serum or whole blood) for screening applications and uncompromised detection capabilities in samples contaminated with high levels of bacteria.
Early in viral infection, the STAT1 transcription factor is rapidly transported into the nucleus using a nonconventional import mechanism to establish an antiviral state. In this issue, Xu et al. (2014) show how the Ebola virus VP24 protein precisely blocks specialized STAT1 import while leaving other cellular import processes intact.
Ebola causes severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates, and there are currently no approved therapeutic countermeasures. The virulence of Ebola virus (EBOV) may be partially attributed to the secreted glycoprotein (sGP), which is the main product transcribed from its GP gene. sGP is secreted from infected cells and can be readily detected in the serum of EBOV-infected hosts. This review summarizes the multiple roles that sGP may play during infection and highlights the implications for the future design of vaccines and treatments.
In recent years, there have been increasing numbers of alerts for possible imported cases of infection by highly pathogenic viruses (HiPaV). Striking examples include severe respiratory pathogens (e.g., the SARS or MERS coronavirus) (6), or haemorrhagic fever viruses (e.g., Ebola virus) (3). Many countries have already implemented disease control measures that include the establishment of specialized facilities such as negative-air pressure isolation rooms for the containment of patients and reference diagnostic laboratories where potentially infectious samples can be safely analyzed to provide diagnosis and virus characterization.
URGENT CARE staff should be aware that Ebola must be ruled out in all patients at their first point of contact in emergency departments (EDs), new guidance warns.
On March 21, 2014, the Guinea Ministry of Health reported the outbreak of an illness characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high case-fatality rate (59%) among 49 persons. Specimens from 15 of 20 persons tested at Institut Pasteur in Lyon, France, were positive for an Ebola virus by polymerase chain reaction. Viral sequencing identified Ebola virus (species Zaïre ebolavirus), one of five viruses in the genus Ebolavirus, as the cause. Cases of Ebola viral disease (EVD) were initially reported in three southeastern districts (Gueckedou, Macenta, and Kissidougou) of Guinea and in the capital city of Conakry. By March 30, cases had been reported in Foya district in neighboring Liberia, and in May, the first cases identified in Sierra Leone were reported. As of June 18, the outbreak was the largest EVD outbreak ever documented, with a combined total of 528 cases (including laboratory-confirmed, probable, and suspected cases) and 337 deaths reported in the three countries. The largest previous outbreak occurred in Uganda during 2000–2001, when 425 cases were reported with 224 deaths.
The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease has mobilized the international community against this deadly disease. However, rabies, another deadly disease, is greatly affecting the African continent, with an estimated 25 000 deaths every year. And yet, the disease can be prevented by a vaccine, if necessary with immunoglobulin, even when administered after exposure to the rabies virus. Rabies victims die because of neglect and ignorance, because they are not aware of these life-saving biologicals, or because they cannot access them or do not have the money to pay for them. Breaking the cycle of indifference of rabies deaths in humans in Africa should be a priority of governments, international organizations and all stakeholders involved.
The current Ebola epidemic has presented challenges both medical and ethical. Although we have known epidemics of untreatable diseases in the past, this particular one may be unique in the intensity and rapidity of its spread, as well as ethical challenges that it has created, exacerbated by its geographic location. We will look at the infectious agent and the epidemic it is causing, in order to understand the ethical problems that have arisen.
The governors of a number of states, including New York and New Jersey, recently imposed 21-day quarantines on health care workers returning to the United States from regions of the world where they may have cared for patients with Ebola virus disease. We understand their motivation for this policy – to protect the citizens of their states from contracting this often-fatal illness. This approach, however, is not scientifically based, is unfair and unwise, and will impede essential efforts to stop these awful outbreaks of Ebola disease at their source, which is the only satisfactory goal. The governors' action is like driving a carpet tack with a sledgehammer: it gets the job done but overall is more destructive than beneficial.
At least 14 nurses are among 80 healthcare workers who have died from an outbreak of the Ebola virus spreading across West Africa, declared an international public health emergency last week by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Ebola, Hendra, and Nipah viruses are members of different viral families and are known causative agents of fatal viral diseases. These viruses depend on cathepsin L for entry into their target cells. The viral glycoproteins need to be primed by protease cleavage, rendering them active for fusion with the host cell membrane. In this study, we developed a novel high-throughput screening assay based on peptides, derived from the glycoproteins of the aforementioned viruses, which contain the cathepsin L cleavage site. We screened a library of 5,000 small molecules and discovered a small molecule that can inhibit the cathepsin L cleavage of all viral peptides with minimal inhibition of cleavage of a host protein-derived peptide (pro-neuropeptide Y).
Ebola virus disease has a high risk of death, killing between 50 and 90 per cent of those infected. The largest outbreak to date is the ongoing West African flare-up affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
The United Nations has been criticized for being slow to react to the latest Ebola outbreak in West Africa. But it is now making up for lost time with a concerted response to help the countries most affected.
In a recent study published in Nature, Warren et al. describe the generation of a novel synthetic adenosine analogue, BCX4430, a synthetic drug-like small molecule that provides protection from Ebola and Marburg virus infection in animal models.
The Marburg virus VP40 protein is a viral matrix protein that spontaneously buds from cells. It also functions as an interferon (IFN) signaling antagonist by targeting janus kinase 1 (JAK1). A previous study demonstrated that the VP40 protein of the Ravn strain of Marburg virus (Ravn virus or RAVV) failed to block IFN signaling in mouse cells, whereas the mouse-adapted RAVV (maRAVV) VP40 acquired the ability to inhibit IFN responses in mouse cells. The increased IFN-antagonist function of maRAVV VP40 mapped to residues 57 and 165, which were mutated during the mouse adaptation process. In the present study, we demonstrate that maRAVV VP40 lost the capacity to efficiently bud from human cell lines, despite the fact that both parental and maRAVV VP40s bud efficiently from mouse cell lines.
The ongoing Ebola virus disease (Ebola) epidemic in West Africa, like previous Ebola outbreaks, has been characterized by amplification in health care settings and increased risk for health care workers (HCWs), who often do not have access to appropriate personal protective equipment. In many locations, Ebola treatment units (ETUs) have been established to optimize care of patients with Ebola while maintaining infection control procedures to prevent transmission of Ebola virus. These ETUs are considered essential to containment of the epidemic. In July 2014, CDC assisted the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia in investigating a cluster of five Ebola cases among HCWs who became ill while working in an ETU, an adjacent general hospital, or both. No common source of exposure or chain of transmission was identified. However, multiple opportunities existed for transmission of Ebola virus to HCWs, including exposure to patients with undetected Ebola in the hospital, inadequate use of personal protective equipment during cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces in the hospital, and potential transmission from an ill HCW to another HCW.
Ebola virus disease (Ebola) is a multisystem disease caused by a virus of the genus Ebolavirus. In late March 2014, Ebola cases were described in Liberia, with epicenters in Lofa County and later in Montserrado County. While information about case burden and health care infrastructure was available for the two epicenters, little information was available about remote counties in southeastern Liberia. Over 9 days, August 6–14, 2014, Ebola case burden, health care infrastructure, and emergency preparedness were assessed in collaboration with the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in four counties in southeastern Liberia: Grand Gedeh, Grand Kru, River Gee, and Maryland. Data were collected by health care facility visits to three of the four county referral hospitals and by unstructured interviews with county and district health officials, hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and health educators in all four counties. Local burial practices were discussed with county officials, but no direct observation of burial practices was conducted.
Transmission in serodiscordant couples (SDCs) accounts for approximately half of all new HIV infections, both in Kenya and the wider sub-Saharan region (1). With evidence to suggest inconsistent condom use within this population (2), the World Health Organization has recommended two new methods of HIV prevention for SDCs: Treatment as Prevention (TasP) and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). However, there has been little research about the attitudes of SDCs towards these strategies (3, 4); knowledge that is paramount for successfully predicting the acceptability and efficacy of each method, as well as for informing decisions regarding HIV policy changes in Kenya.
The largest ever Ebola virus disease outbreak is ravaging West Africa. The constellation of little public health infrastructure, low levels of health literacy, limited acute care and infection prevention and control resources, densely populated areas, and a highly transmissible and lethal viral infection have led to thousands of confirmed, probable, or suspected cases thus far. Ebola virus disease is characterized by a febrile severe illness with profound gastrointestinal manifestations and is complicated by intravascular volume depletion, shock, profound electrolyte abnormalities, and organ dysfunction. Despite no proven Ebola virus-specific medical therapies, the potential effect of supportive care is great for a condition with high baseline mortality and one usually occurring in resource-constrained settings. With more personnel, basic monitoring, and supportive treatment, many of the sickest patients with Ebola virus disease do not need to die. Ebola virus disease represents an illness ready for a paradigm shift in care delivery and outcomes, and the profession of critical care medicine can and should be instrumental in helping this happen.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a viral hemorrhagic fever that is highly transmissible and all too often rapidly fatal. Recent outbreaks in West Africa reveal that this infection has the potential to be transmitted worldwide. Anesthesiologists and intensivists, due to their training in the management of the critically ill, may be called upon to assist in the management of these patients. The focus of this brief review is on the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and management of patients with EVD.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa this year is causing global panic. The high mortality of this disease is largely due to lack of effective preventive vaccines or therapeutic drugs. Realizing the gravity and urgency in controlling the epidemic, governments and drug companies across the world have taken many strong measures to speed up the process of drug development. Several representative candidate drugs that demonstrate potent anti-Ebola activity in preclinical studies have been pushed forward to higher research stages to obtain an earlier official license. It is expected that proven preventive or therapeutic regimens could be established in the near future.
Viral pathogenesis in the infected cell is a balance between antiviral responses and subversion of host-cell processes. Many viral proteins specifically interact with host-cell, proteins to promote virus biology. Understanding these interactions can lead to knowledge gains about infection and provide potential targets for antiviral therapy. One such virus is Ebola, which has profound consequences for human health and causes viral hemorrhagic fever where case fatality rates can approach 90%. The Ebola virus VP24 protein plays a critical role in the evasion of the host immune response and is likely to interact with multiple cellular proteins. To map these interactions and better understand the potential functions of VP24, label-free quantitative proteomics was used to identify cellular proteins that had a high probability of forming the VP24 cellular interactome. Several known interactions were confirmed, thus placing confidence in the technique, but new interactions were also discovered including one with ATP1A1, which is involved in osmoregulation and cell signaling.
In this study we develop a mathematical modelling framework for linking the within-host and between-host dynamics of infections with free-living pathogens in the environment. The resulting linked models are sometimes called immuno-epidemiological models. For infections with free-living pathogens in the environment, there is a stumbling block in that there is a gap in knowledge on how environmental factors (through water, air, soil, food, fomites, etc.) alter many aspects of such infections including susceptibility to infective dose, persistence of infection, pathogen shedding and severity of the disease. We expect the conceptual modelling framework developed here to be applicable to many infectious disease with free-living pathogens in the environment beyond the specific disease system of human schistosomiasis considered here.
The cyanobacterial lectin scytovirin (SVN) binds with high affinity to mannose-rich oligosaccharides on the envelope glycoprotein (GP) of a number of viruses, blocking entry into target cells. In this study, we assessed the ability of SVN to bind to the envelope GP of Zaire Ebola virus (ZEBOV) and inhibit its replication. SVN interacted specifically with the protein's mucin-rich domain. In cell culture, it inhibited ZEBOV replication with a 50% virus-inhibitory concentration (EC50) of 50 nM, and was also active against the Angola strain of the related Marburg virus (MARV), with a similar EC50. Our findings provide further evidence of the potential of natural lectins as therapeutic agents for viral infections.
On 23 March 2014, the World Health Organization issued its first communiqué on a new outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD), which began in December 2013 in GuinéeForestière (Forested Guinea), the eastern sector of the Republic of Guinea. Located on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, Guinea is the first country in this geographical region in which an outbreak of EVD has occurred, leaving aside the single case reported in Ivory Coast in 1994. Cases have now also been confirmed across Guinea as well as in the neighbouring Republic of Liberia. The appearance of cases in the Guinean capital, Conakry, and the transit of another case through the Liberian capital, Monrovia, presents the first large urban setting for EVD transmission. By 20 April 2014, 242 suspected cases had resulted in a total of 147 deaths in Guinea and Liberia. The causative agent has now been identified as an outlier strain of Zaire Ebola virus. The full geographical extent and degree of severity of the outbreak, its zoonotic origins and its possible spread to other continents are sure to be subjects of intensive discussion over the next months.
Zoonotic infectious diseases have been an important concern to humankind for more than 10,000 years. Today, approximately 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) arezoonoses that result from various anthropogenic, genetic, ecologic, socioeconomic, and climatic factors. These interrelated driving forces make it difficult to predict and to prevent zoonotic EIDs. Although significant improvements in environmental and medical surveillance, clinical diagnostic methods, and medical practices have been achieved in the recent years, zoonotic EIDs remain a major global concern, and such threats are expanding, especially in less developed regions. The current Ebola epidemic in West Africa is an extreme stark reminder of the role animal reservoirs play in public health and reinforces the urgent need for globally operationalizing a One Health approach. The complex nature of zoonotic diseases and the limited resources in developing countries are a reminder that the need for implementation of Global One Health in low-resource settings is crucial.
Filoviruses such as Ebola virus and Marburg virus cause a severe haemorrhagic fever syndrome in humans for which there is no specific treatment. Since filoviruses use a complex route of cell entry that depends on numerous cellular factors, we hypothesized that there may be drugs already approved for human use for other indications that interfere with signal transduction or other cellular processes required for their entry and hence have anti-filoviral properties. The ion channel blockers amiodarone, dronedarone and verapamil inhibit filoviral cell entry.
In its largest outbreak, Ebola virus disease is spreading through Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. We sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients in Sierra Leone to ∼2000 × coverage. We observed a rapid accumulation of interhost and intrahost genetic variation, allowing us to characterize patterns of viral transmission over the initial weeks of the epidemic. This West African variant likely diverged from central African lineages around 2004, crossed from Guinea to Sierra Leone in May 2014, and has exhibited sustained human-to-human transmission subsequently, with no evidence of additional zoonotic sources. Because many of the mutations alter protein sequences and other biologically meaningful targets, they should be monitored for impact on diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies critical to outbreak response.
The host cell protein tetherin can restrict the release of enveloped viruses from infected cells. The HIV-1 protein Vpu counteracts tetherin by removing it from the site of viral budding, the plasma membrane, and this process depends on specific interactions between the transmembrane domains of Vpu and tetherin. In contrast, the glycoproteins (GPs) of two filoviruse, Ebola and Marburg virus, antagonize tetherin without reducing surface expression, and the domains in GP required for tetherin counteraction are unknown. Here, we show that filovirus GPs depend on the presence of their authentic transmembrane domains for virus-cell fusion and tetherin antagonism. However, conserved residues within the transmembrane domain were dispensable for membrane fusion and tetherin counteraction. Moreover, the insertion of the transmembrane domain into a heterologous viral GP, Lassa virus GPC, was not sufficient to confer tetherin antagonism to the recipient.
Currently, West Africa is facing the largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in history. The virus causing this outbreak, the Zaire Ebolavirus (EBOV), belongs to the genus Ebolavirus which together with the genus Marburgvirus forms the family of the Filoviridae. EBOV is one of the most virulent pathogens among the viral haemorrhagic fevers, and case fatality rates up to 90% have been reported. Mortality is the result of multi-organ failure and severe bleeding complications. By 18 September 2014, the WHO reported of 5335 cases (confirmed, suspected and probable) with 2622 deaths, resulting in a case fatality rate of around 50%. This review aims to provide an overview of EVD for clinicians, with the emphasis on pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, and treatment options.
For those of us who lived through the early days of the U.S. AIDS epidemic, the current national panic over Ebola brings back some very bad memories. The toxic mix of scientific ignorance and paranoia on display in the reaction to the return of health care workers from the front lines of the fight against Ebola in West Africa, the amplification of these reactions by politicians and the media, and the fear-driven suspicion and shunning of whole classes of people are all reminiscent of the response to the emergence of AIDS in the 1980s.
Retroviruses can acquire not only their own glycoproteins as they bud from the cellular membrane, but also some cellular and foreign viral glycoproteins. Many of these non-native glycoproteins are actively recruited to budding virions, particularly other viral glycoproteins. This observation suggests that there may be a conserved mechanism underlying the recruitment of glycoproteins into viruses. If a conserved mechanism is used, diverse glycoproteins should localize to a single budding retroviral particle. On the other hand, if viral glycoproteins have divergent mechanisms for recruitment, the different glycoproteins could segregate into different particles.
Ebolavirus is an enveloped virus causing severe hemorrhagic fever. Its surface glycoproteins undergo proteolytic cleavage and rearrangements to permit membrane fusion and cell entry. Here we focus on the glycoprotein's internal fusion loop (FL), critical for low-pH-triggered fusion in the endosome. Alanine mutations at L529 and 1544 and particularly the L529 1544 double mutation compromised viral entry and fusion. The nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) structures of the I544A and L529A I544A mutants in lipid environments showed significant disruption of a three-residue scaffold that is required for the formation of a consolidated fusogenic hydrophobic surface at the tip of the FL. Biophysical experiments and molecular simulation revealed the position of the wild-type (WT) FL in membranes and showed the inability of the inactive double mutant to reach this position.
Budding of filoviruses, arenaviruses, and rhabdoviruses is facilitated by subversion of host proteins, such as Nedd4 E3 ubiquitin ligase, by viral PPxY late (L) budding domains expressed within the matrix proteins of these RNA viruses. As L domains are important for budding and are highly conserved in a wide array of RNA viruses, they represent potential broad-spectrum targets for the development of antiviral drugs. To identify potential competitive blockers, we used the known Nedd4 WW domain-PPxY interaction interface as the basis of an in silico screen. Using PPxY-dependent budding of Marburg (MARV) VP40 virus-like particles (VLPs) as our model system, we identified small-molecule hit 1 that inhibited Nedd4-PPxY interaction and PPxY-dependent budding.
Immune recognition of foreign proteins by T cells hinges on the formation of a ternary complex sandwiching a constituent peptide of the protein between a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule and a T cell receptor (TCR). Viruses have evolved means of “camouflaging” themselves, avoiding immune recognition by reducing the MHC and/or TCR binding of their constituent peptides. Computer-driven T cell epitope mapping tools have been used to evaluate the degree to which particular viruses have used this means of avoiding immune response, but most such analyses focus on MHC-facing ‘agretopes’. Here we set out a new means of evaluating the TCR faces of viral peptides in addition to their agretopes, integrating evaluations of both sides of the ternary complex in a single analysis.
Two identical single-ascending-dose studies evaluated the safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) of AVI-6002 and AVI-6003, two experimental combinations of phosphorodiamidatemorpholino oligomers with positive charges (PMOplus) that target viral mRNA encoding Ebola virus and Marburg virus proteins, respectively. Both AVI-6002 and AVI-6003 were found to suppress disease in virus-infected nonhuman primates in previous studies. AVI-6002 (a combination of AVI-7537 and AVI-7539) or AVI-6003 (a combination of AVI-7287 and AVI-7288) were administered as sequential intravenous (i.v.) infusions of a 1:1 fixed dose ratio of the two subcomponents. The mean peak plasma concentration and area under the concentration-time curve values of the four components exhibited dose-proportional PK. The estimated plasma half-life of all four components was 2 to 5 h. The safety of the two combinations and the PK of the four components were similar, regardless of the target RNA sequence.
Viruses cause a wide range of human diseases, ranging from acute self-resolving conditions to acute fatal diseases. Effects that arise long after the primary infection can also increase the propensity for chronic conditions or lead to the development of cancer. Recent advances in the fields of virology and pathology have been fundamental in improving our understanding of viral pathogenesis, in providing improved vaccination strategies and in developing newer, more effective treatments for patients worldwide. The reviews assembled here focus on the interface between virology and pathology and encompass aspects of both the clinical pathology of viral disease and the underlying disease mechanisms. Articles on emerging diseases caused by Ebola virus, Marburg virus, coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, Nipah virus and noroviruses are followed by reviews of enteroviruses, HIV infection, measles, mumps, human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, cytomegalovirus (CMV) and varicella zoster virus (VZV).
The global rise of Ebola viral diseases in 2014 necessitates legal responses that promote effective public health responses and respect for the health and human rights of populations. Compulsory public health interventions, approval and administration of experimental drugs or vaccines, and allocation of finite resources require difficult choices in law and policy. Crafting legal decisions in real-time emergencies is neither easy nor predictable, but it is essential to controlling epidemics and saving lives.
Ebola viruses cause severe hemorrhagic fevers in humans and non-human primates, with case fatality rates as high as 90%. There are no approved vaccines or specific treatments for the disease caused by these viruses, and work with infectious Ebola viruses is restricted to biosafety level 4 laboratories, significantly limiting the research on these viruses. Lifecycle modeling systems model the virus lifecycle under biosafety level 2 conditions; however, until recently such systems have been limited to either individual aspects of the virus lifecycle, or a single infectious cycle. Tetracistronicminigenomes, which consist of Ebola virus non-coding regions, a reporter gene, and three Ebola virus genes involved in morphogenesis, budding, and entry (VP40, GP1,2, and VP24), can be used to produce replication and transcription-competent virus-like particles (trVLPs) containing these minigenomes. These trVLPs can continuously infect cells expressing the Ebola virus proteins responsible for genome replication and transcription, allowing us to safely model multiple infectious cycles under biosafety level 2 conditions.
Filoviruses cause severe hemorrhagic fevers with case fatality rates of up to 90%, for which no antivirals are currently available. Their categorization as biosafety level 4 agents restricts work with infectious viruses to a few maximum containment laboratories worldwide, which constitutes a significant obstacle for the development of countermeasures. Reverse genetics facilitates the generation of recombinant filoviruses, including reporter-expressing viruses, which have been increasingly used for drug screening and development in recent years. Further, reverse-genetics based lifecycle modeling systems allow modeling of the filovirus lifecycle without the need for a maximum containment laboratory and have recently been optimized for use in high-throughput assays. The availability of these reverse genetics-based tools will significantly improve our ability to find novel antivirals against filoviruses.
The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa is the worst so far. The unprecedented extent of mortality and morbidity in this outbreak has followed more from imposition of neoliberal economic policies on the countries affected than from the biological virulence of Ebola virus. The lack of vaccines and medications for Ebola virus disease is evidence that markets cannot reliably supply treatments for epidemic diseases. We attribute the current difficulties in containment chiefly to the erosion or non-development of the health and medical infrastructure needed to respond effectively, as a direct result of market-privileging policies imposed in the interests of wealthy nations. These events and responses hold lessons for public health priorities in Australia.
Ebola is a deadly virus that causes frequent disease outbreaks in the human population. In this study, we analyse its rate of new introductions, case fatality ratio, and potential to spread from person to person. The analysis is performed for all completed outbreaks and for a scenario where these are augmented by a more severe outbreak of several thousand cases. The results show a fast rate of new outbreaks, a high case fatality ratio, and an effective reproductive ratio of just less than 1.
The filovirus Ebola (EBOV) causes the most severe hemorrhagic fever known. The EBOV RNA-dependent polymerase complex includes a filovirus-specific VP30, which is critical for the transcriptional but not replication activity of EBOV polymerase; to support transcription, VP30 must be in a dephosphorylated form. Here we show that EBOV VP30 is phosphorylated not only at the N-terminal serine clusters identified previously but also at the threonine residues at positions 143 and 146. We also show that host cell protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) controls VP30 dephosphorylation because expression of a PPl-binding peptide cdNIPPl increased VP30 phosphorylation. Moreover, targeting PP1 mRNA by shRNA resulted in the overexpression of SIPP1, a cytoplasm-shuttling regulatory subunit of PP1, and increased EBOV transcription, suggesting that cytoplasmic accumulation of PP1 induces EBOV transcription.
The practice among the Boran and Gabra pastoralists of northern Kenya resembled that which was prevalent in a number of areas of Ethiopia. The Boran and Gabra technique for smallpox inoculation consisted of taking infective material from the vesicles or pustules of those with active smallpox, and scraping it into the skin on the dorsum of the lower forearm. Although the intent was to cause a local reaction and at most a mild form of smallpox, severe cases of the disease not infrequently resulted. The expansion of vaccination with effective heat stable vaccines, the development of medical and public health infrastructures, and educational programs all contributed to the eventual disappearance of the practice among the Boran and Gabra.
West Africa is currently in the midst of the largest Ebola outbreak in history. Although there have been no Ebola virus disease cases identified in the United States, two U.S. health care workers with Ebola virus disease were medically evacuated from Liberia to the United States in early August 2014. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been working closely with other U.S. government agencies and international and nongovernmental partners for several months to respond to this global crisis. Limited evidence suggests that pregnant women are at increased risk for severe illness and death when infected with Ebola virus, but there is no evidence to suggest that pregnant women are more susceptible to Ebola virus disease. In addition, pregnant women with Ebola virus disease appear to be at an increased risk for spontaneous abortion and pregnancy-associated hemorrhage. Neonates born to mothers with Ebola virus disease have not survived.
Antigen presenting cells (APCs), including macrophages and dendritic cells, are early and sustained targets of Ebola virus (EBOV) infection in vivo. Because EBOV activates mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling upon infection of APCs, we evaluated the effect of pyridinyl imidazole inhibitors of p38 MAPK on EBOV infection of human APCs and EBOV mediated cytokine production from human DCs. Our results indicate that pyridinyl imidazole p38 MAPK inhibitors may serve as leads for the development of therapeutics to treat EBOV infection.
There exists an urgent need to develop iterative risk assessment strategies of zoonotic diseases. The aim of this study is to develop a method of prioritizing 98 zoonoses derived from animal pathogens in Japan and to involve four major groups of stakeholders: researchers, physicians, public health officials, and citizens. We used a combination of risk profiling and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Profiling risk was accomplished with semi-quantitative analysis of existing public health data. AHP data collection was performed by administering questionnaires to the four stakeholder groups. Results showed that researchers and public health officials focused on case fatality as the chief important factor, while physicians and citizens placed more weight on diagnosis and prevention, respectively. Most of the six top-ranked diseases were similar among all stakeholders. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and Ebola fever were ranked first, second, and third, respectively.
Infectious hemorrhagic fevers caused by Marburg and Ebola filoviruses result in human mortality rates of up to 90%, and there are no effective vaccines or therapeutics available for clinical use. The highly infectious and lethal nature of these viruses highlights the need for reliable and sensitive diagnostic methods. We assembled a protein microarray displaying NP, VP40, and GP antigens from isolates representing the six species of filoviruses for use as a surveillance and diagnostic platform. Using the microarrays, we examined serum antibody responses of rhesus vaccinated with trivalent (GP, NP, and VP40) virus-like particles (VLP) prior to infection with Marburg marburgvirus (MARV) or Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV). The microarray-based assay detected a significant increase in antigen-specific IgG resulting from immunization while a greater level of antibody responses resulted from challenge of the vaccinated animals with ZEBOV or MARV.
With the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continuing to grow, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an urgent meeting on September 29 and 30 to assess the efforts under way to evaluate and produce safe and effective Ebola vaccines as soon as possible. 1 The 70 scientists, public health officials, and representatives from industry and regulatory bodies who gathered in Geneva discussed two vaccine candidates at length – cAd3-EBOV (cAd3), from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and rVSVG-EBOV-GP (rVSV), from NewLink Genetics and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Human HBV and HIV integrate their retro-transcribed DNA proviruses into the human host genome. Existing antiretroviral drug regimens fail to directly target these intrachromosomalxenogenomes, leading to persistence of viral genetic information. Retinazone (RTZ) constitutes a novel vitamin A-derived (retinoid) thiosemicarbazone derivative with broad-spectrum antiviral activity versus HIV, HCV, varicella-zoster virus and cytomegalovirus. RTZ represents the first reported antiviral agent capable of eradicating HIV and HBV proviruses from their human host. Furthermore, RTZ represents a potent and efficacious small-molecule in vitro inhibitor of Ebola virus Zaire 1976 strain Mayinga replication.
Ebola virus disease (hereafter Ebola) has a high fatality rate; currently lacks a treatment or vaccine with proven safety and efficacy, and thus many people fear this infection. As of August 13, 2014, 2,127 patients across four West African countries have been infected with the Ebola virus over the past nine months. Among these patients, approximately 1 in 2 has subsequently died from the disease. In response, the World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. However, Ebola is only transmitted by patients who already present symptoms of the disease, and infection only occurs upon direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Consequently, transmission of the outbreak can be contained through careful monitoring for fever among persons who have visited, or come into contact with persons from, the site of the outbreak. Thus, patients suspected of presenting symptoms characteristic of Ebola should be quarantined.
Home visiting is a popular component of programs for HIV-affected children in sub-Saharan Africa, but its implementation varies widely. While some home visitors are lay volunteers, other programs invest in more highly trained paraprofessional staff. This paper describes a study investigating whether additional investment in paraprofessional staffing translated into higher quality service delivery in one program context. Paraprofessional-driven programs not only provided significantly more home visits, but also provided greater interaction with the child, communication on a larger variety of topics, and more tangible support to caregivers.
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes a severe hemorrhagic disease in humans and nonhuman primates, with a median case fatality rate of 78.4%. Although EBOV is considered a public health concern, there is a relative paucity of information regarding the modulation of the functional host response during infection. We employed temporal kinome analysis to investigate the relative early, intermediate, and late host kinome responses to EBOV infection in human hepatocytes. Pathway overrepresentation analysis and functional network analysis of kinome data revealed that transforming growth factor (TGF-)-mediated signaling responses were temporally modulated in response to EBOV infection.
Military nurses are part of the British military personnel travelling to west Africa this week to care for healthcare workers with suspected Ebola.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak has been seen by many as a “perfect storm” and an “unprecedented” public health calamity. This article attempts to place this most current of epidemics, one currently struggling for pandemic status, in an historical frame. At least since the 1600s protocols and programs for the containment of epidemic disease have been known, and mapped. And yet it was almost six months after warnings about this epidemic were first sounded that incomplete programs of control and surveillance were instituted. In effect, we have forgotten the basics of what was once common knowledge in public health. Having placed our faith in bacteriology, virology, and pharmacology, we have forgotten the lessons learned, long ago.
A detailed understanding of the circulating pathogens in a particular geographic location aids in effectively utilizing targeted, rapid diagnostic assays, thus allowing for appropriate therapeutic and containment procedures. This is especially important in regions prevalent for highly pathogenic viruses co-circulating with other endemic pathogens such as the malaria parasite. The importance of biosurveillance is highlighted by the ongoing Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa. For example, a more comprehensive assessment of the regional pathogens could have identified the risk of a filovirus disease outbreak earlier and led to an improved diagnostic and response capacity in the region. In this context, being able to rapidly screen a single sample for multiple pathogens in a single tube reaction could improve both diagnostics as well as pathogen surveillance. Here, probes were designed to capture identifying filovirus sequence for the ebolaviruses Sudan, Ebola, Reston, Taï Forest, and Bundibugyo and the Marburg virus variants Musoke, Ci67, and Angola.
Fusion of the viral and host cell membranes is a necessary first step for infection by enveloped viruses and is mediated by the envelope glycoprotein. The transmembrane subunits from the structurally defined “class I” glycoproteins adopt an α-helical “trimer-of-hairpins” conformation during the fusion pathway. Here, we present our studies on the envelope glycoprotein transmembrane subunit, GP2, of the CAS virus (CASV). CASV was recently identified from annulated tree boas (Corallusannulatus) with inclusion body disease and is implicated in the disease etiology. We have generated and characterized two protein constructs consisting of the predicted CASV GP2 core domain. The crystal structure of the CASV GP2 post-fusion conformation indicates a trimeric α-helical bundle that is highly similar to those of Ebola virus and Marburg virus GP2 despite CASV genome homology to arenaviruses. Denaturation studies demonstrate that the stability of CASV GP2 is pH dependent with higher stability at lower pH; we propose that this behavior is due to a network of interactions among acidic residues that would destabilize the α-helical bundle under conditions where the side chains are deprotonated.
During an evolving public health emergency, a simple algorithm for initial patient identification and management is essential for providers on the front lines. This article recommends a 3-pronged system of Identify, Isolate, Inform to describe the actions necessary in the first few minutes of encountering a potential Ebola patient. Application of the “vital sign zero” triage concept of early recognition of potential threats coupled with this novel algorithm will optimize protection of health care workers and the public health while concurrently providing a safe method for individual patient care.
During public health emergencies of international concern such as the 2014 Ebola event, health care leaders need to educate clinicians on the front lines to make uncomfortable, but real triage decisions that focus on optimization of population health outcomes over individual care. Health care workers must consider their own protection first before direct contact with potentially contagious patients. In an era of globalization and emerging infectious disease, routine triage including evaluation of the standard vital signs must shift to include public health considerations with immediate consequences. A new “vital sign zero” should be taken at the time of initial patient evaluation to assess for risk and exposure to potentially contagious infectious diseases.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) developed in a patient who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone and was airlifted to an isolation facility in Hamburg, Germany, for treatment. During the course of the illness, he had numerous complications, including septicemia, respiratory failure, and encephalopathy. Intensive supportive treatment consisting of high-volume fluid resuscitation (approximately 10 liters per day in the first 72 hours), broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, and ventilatory support resulted in full recovery without the use of experimental therapies.
Several animal viruses encode proteins that bind double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to counteract host dsRNA-dependent antiviral responses. This article discusses the structure and function of the dsRNA-binding proteins of influenza A virus and Ebola viruses (EBOVs).
Specific alterations (mutations, deletions, insertions) of virus genomes are crucial for the functional characterization of their regulatory elements and their expression products, as well as a prerequisite for the creation of attenuated viruses that could serve as vaccine candidates. Virus genome tailoring can be performed either by using traditionally cloned genomes as starting materials, followed by site-directed mutagenesis, or by de novo synthesis of modified virus genomes or parts thereof. A systematic nomenclature for such recombinant viruses is necessary to set them apart from wild-type and laboratory-adapted viruses, and to improve communication and collaborations among researchers who may want to use recombinant viruses or create novel viruses based on them. A large group of filovirus experts has recently proposed nomenclatures for natural and laboratory animal-adapted filoviruses that aim to simplify the retrieval of sequence data from electronic databases.
Airborne contact dermatitis (ABCD) is considered a prototype in the field of environmental dermatology. It is often underestimated in most textbooks of general dermatology, despite its frequent occurrence in daily life. ABCD may be irritant, allergic, phototoxic, or photoallergic. Airborne contact urticaria is another example. A particular clinical aspect is the “head and neck dermatitis”, which occurs in atopic adult patients. Occupational ABCD represents a most difficult issue in terms of diagnostic procedures. It is obvious that non-occupational ABCD cases involve similar problems, usually easier to solve, and our comments refer to both conditions. Two examples of potentially airborne skin infections (e.g., anthrax and Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever) are also described because they are closely related to the same problematics. A new example of airborne irritant contact dermatitis, not reported so far, is linked with the use of continuous airway pressure in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.
Our objective was to estimate the case fatality rates of Zaire, Sudan, and Bundibugyo Ebola species, responsible for sometimes-lethal hemorrhagic fevers. The case fatality rates associated with these 3 species was high. A great variability was observed. It could be explained partly by a species effect and by the decrease of Zaire species case fatality rate, with time.
Endogenous retroviruses are the remnants of past retroviral infections that are scattered within mammalian genomes. In humans, most of these elements are old degenerate sequences that have lost their coding properties. The HERV-K(HML2) family is an exception: it recently amplified in the human genome and corresponds to the most active proviruses, with some intact open reading frames and the potential to encode viral particles. Here, using a reconstructed consensus element, we show that HERV-K(HML2) proviruses are able to inhibit Tetherin, a cellular restriction factor that is active against most enveloped viruses and acts by keeping the viral particles attached to the cell surface. More precisely, we identify the Envelope protein (Env) as the viral effector active against Tetherin. Through immunoprecipitation experiments, we show that the recognition of Tetherin is mediated by the surface subunit of Env. Similar to Ebola glycoprotein, HERV-K(HML2) Env does not mediate Tetherin degradation or cell surface removal; therefore, it uses a yet-undescribed mechanism to inactivate Tetherin.
Ebola virus (EBOV) entry requires the virion surface-associated glycoprotein (GP) that is composed of a trimer of heterodimers (GP1/GP2). Filovirus outbreaks occur sporadically throughout central Africa, causing high fatality rates among the general public and health care workers. These unpredictable hemorrhagic fever outbreaks are caused by multiple species of Ebola viruses, as well as Marburg virus. While filovirus vaccines and therapeutics are being developed, there are no licensed products. The sole viral envelope glycoprotein, which is a principal immunogenic target, contains a heavy shield of glycans surrounding the conserved receptor-binding domain. We find that disruption of this shield through targeted mutagenesis leads to an increase in cell entry, protease sensitivity, and antiserum/antibody sensitivity but is not sufficient to allow virion binding to the intracellular receptor NPC1. Therefore, our studies provide evidence that filoviruses maintain glycoprotein glycosylation to protect against proteases and antibody neutralization at the expense of efficient entry. Our results unveil interesting insights into the unique entry process of filoviruses and potential immune evasion tactics of the virus.
Accumulating evidence indicates that T-cell immunoglobulin (Ig) and mucin domain (TIM) proteins play critical roles in viral infections. Herein, we report that the TIM-family proteins strongly inhibit HIV-1 release, resulting in diminished viral production and replication. Expression of TIM-1 causes HIV-1 Gag and mature viral particles to accumulate on the plasma membrane. Mutation of the phosphatidylserine (PS) binding sites of TIM-1 abolishes its ability to block HIV-1 release. TIM-1, but to a much lesser extent PS-binding deficient mutants, induces PS flipping onto the cell surface; TIM-1 is also found to be incorporated into HIV-1 virions.
Since Ebola virus was discovered in 1970s, the virus has persisted in Africa and sporadic fatal outbreaks in humans and non-human primates have been reported. However, the evolutionary history of Ebola virus remains unclear. In this study, 27 Ebola virus strains with complete glycoprotein genes, including five species (Zaire, Sudan, Reston, Tai Forest, Bundibugyo), were analysed. Here, we propose a hypothesis of the evolutionary history of Ebola virus which will be helpful to investigate the molecular evolution of these viruses.
Ebola virus (EBOV), a member of the filovirus family, is an enveloped negative-sense RNA virus that causes lethal infections in humans and primates. Recently, more than 1000 people have been killed by the Ebola virus disease in Africa, yet no specific treatment or diagnostic tests for EBOV are available. In this study, we identified two putative viral microRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs) and three putative mature microRNAs (miRNAs) derived from the EBOV genome. The production of the EBOV miRNAs was further validated in HEK293T cells transfected with a pcDNA6.2-GW/EmGFP-EBOV-pre-miRNA plasmid, indicating that EBOV miRNAs can be produced through the cellular miRNA processing machinery. We also predicted the potential target genes of these EBOV miRNAs and their possible biological functions.
As of October 29, 2014, a total of 6,454 Ebola virus disease (Ebola) cases had been reported in Liberia by the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, with 2,609 deaths. Although the national strategy for combating the ongoing Ebola epidemic calls for construction of Ebola treatment units (ETUs) in all 15 counties of Liberia, only a limited number are operational, and most of these are within Montserrado County. ETUs are intended to improve medical care delivery to persons whose illnesses meet Ebola case definitions, while also allowing for the safe isolation of patients to break chains of transmission in the community. Until additional ETUs are constructed, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is supporting development of community care centers (CCCs) for isolation of patients who are awaiting Ebola diagnostic test results and for provision of basic care (e.g., oral rehydration salts solutions) to patients confirmed to have Ebola who are awaiting transfer to ETUs.
Effective host defence against viruses depends on the rapid triggering of innate immunity through the induction of a type I interferon (IFN) response. To this end, microbe-associated molecular patterns are detected by dedicated receptors. Among them, the RIG-I-like receptors RIG-I and MDA5 activate IFN gene expression upon sensing viral RNA in the cytoplasm. While MDA5 forms long filaments in vitro upon activation, RIG-I is believed to oligomerize after RNA binding in order to transduce a signal. Here, we show that in vitro binding of synthetic RNA mimicking that of Mononegavirales (Ebola, rabies and measles viruses) leader sequences to purified RIG-I does not induce RIG-I oligomerization.
The US National Library of Medicine (NLM) offers Internet-based, no-cost resources useful for responding to the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak. Resources for health professionals, planners, responders, and researchers include PubMed, Disaster Lit, the Web page “Ebola Outbreak 2014: Information Resources,” and the Virus Variation database of sequences for Ebolavirus. In cooperation with participating publishers, NLM offers free access to full-text articles from over 650 biomedical journals and 4000 online reference books through the Emergency Access Initiative. At the start of a prolonged disaster event or disease outbreak, the documents and information of most immediate use may not be in the peer-reviewed biomedical journal literature. To maintain current awareness may require using any of the following: news outlets; social media; preliminary online data, maps, and situation reports; and documents published by nongovernmental organizations, international associations, and government agencies.
The Nebraska Biocontainment Unit through the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, recently received patients with confirmed Ebola virus from West Africa. The Nebraska Biocontainment Unit and Omaha Fire Department's emergency medical services (EMS) coordinated patient transportation from airport to the high-level isolation unit. Transportation of these highly infectious patients capitalized on over 8 years of meticulous planning and rigorous infection control training to ensure the safety of transport personnel as well as the community during transport. Although these transports occurred with advanced notice and after confirmed Ebola virus disease (EVD) diagnosis, approaches and key lessons acquired through this effort will advance the ability of any EMS provider to safely transport a confirmed or suspected patient with EVD.
There are currently no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vaccines or therapeutics to prevent or treat Argentine hemorrhagic fever (AHF). The causative agent of AHF is Junin virus (JUNV); a New World arenavirus classified as a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention category A priority pathogen. The PTAP late (L) domain motif within JUNV Z protein facilitates virion egress and transmission by recruiting host Tsgl01 and other ESCRT complex proteins to promote scission of the virus particle from the plasma membrane. Here, we describe a novel compound (compound 0013) that blocks the JUNV Z-Tsg101 interaction and inhibits budding of virus-like particles (VLPs) driven by ectopic expression of the Z protein and live-attenuated JUNV Candid-1 strain in cell culture. Since inhibition of the PTAP-Tsg101 interaction inhibits JUNV egress, compound 0013 serves as a prototype therapeutic that could reduce virus dissemination and disease progression in infected individuals. Moreover, since PTAP 1-domain-mediated Tsg101 recruitment is utilized by other RNA virus pathogens (e.g., Ebola virus and HIV-1), PTAP inhibitors such as compound 0013 have the potential to function as potent broad-spectrum, host-oriented antiviral drugs.
West Africa is currently experiencing the largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in history. Two patients with EVD were transferred from Liberia to our hospital in the United States for ongoing care. Malaria had also been diagnosed in one patient, who was treated for it early in the course of EVD. The two patients had substantial intravascular volume depletion and marked electrolyte abnormalities. We undertook aggressive supportive measures of hydration (typically, 3 to 5 liters of intravenous fluids per day early in the course of care) and electrolyte correction. As the patients' condition improved clinically, there was a concomitant decline in the amount of virus detected in plasma.
The seventh reported outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the equatorial African country of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) began on July 26, 2014, as another large EVD epidemic continued to spread in West Africa. Simultaneous reports of EVD in equatorial and West Africa raised the question of whether the two outbreaks were linked. We obtained data from patients in the DRC, using the standard World Health Organization clinical-investigation form for viral hemorrhagic fevers. Patients were classified as having suspected, probable, or confirmed EVD or a non-EVD illness. Blood samples were obtained for polymerase-chain-reaction-based diagnosis, viral isolation, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis. The current EVD outbreak in the DRC has clinical and epidemiologic characteristics that are similar to those of previous EVD outbreaks in equatorial Africa. The causal agent is a local EBOV variant, and this outbreak has a zoonotic origin different from that in the 2014 epidemic in West Africa.
Ebolaviruses and marburgviruses include some of the most virulent and fatal pathogens known to humans. These viruses cause severe haemorrhagic fevers with case fatality rates ranging from 25% to 90%. The diagnosis of filovirus using formalin-fixed tissues from fatal cases poses a significant challenge. The most characteristic histopathological findings are seen in the liver: however findings overlap with many other viral and non-viral haemorrhagic diseases. The need to distinguish filovirus infections from other haemorrhagic fevers, particularly in areas with multiple endemic viral haemorrhagic agents, is of paramount importance. We discuss the current state of knowledge of filovirus infections and their pathogenesis, including histopathological findings, epidemiology, modes of transmission, and filovirus entry and spread within host organisms. Although our understanding of the pathogenesis of filovirus infections has rapidly increased in the past few years, many questions remain unanswered.
Identifying safe and effective adjuvants is critical for the advanced development of protein-based vaccines. Pattern recognition receptor (PRR) agonists are increasingly being explored as potential adjuvants, but there is concern that the efficacy of these molecules may be dependent on potentially dangerous levels of non-specific immune activation. The filovirus virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine protects mice, guinea pigs, and nonhuman primates from viral challenge. These studies are the first to examine the polyICLC-induced enhancement of antigen-specific immune responses in the context of non-specific immune activation, and they provide a framework from which to consider adjuvant dose levels.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever is one of the most fatal viral diseases worldwide affecting humans and nonhuman primates. Although infections only occur frequently in Central Africa, the virus has the potential to spread globally and is classified as a category A pathogen that could be misused as a bioterrorism agent. As of today there is no vaccine or treatment licensed to counteract Ebola virus infections. DNA, subunit and several viral vector approaches, replicating and non-replicating, have been tested as potential vaccine platforms and their protective efficacy has been evaluated in nonhuman primate models for Ebola virus infections, which closely resemble disease progression in humans. Though these vaccine platforms seem to confer protection through different mechanisms, several of them are efficacious against lethal disease in nonhuman primates attesting that vaccination against Ebola virus infections is feasible.
There has been a rapid spread of Ebola Viral Hemorrhagic disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since March 2014. Since this is the first time of a major Ebola outbreak in West Africa; it is possible there is lack of understanding of the epidemic in the communities, lack of experience among the health workers to manage the cases and limited capacities for rapid response. The main objective of this article is to share Uganda's experience in controlling similar Ebola outbreaks and to suggest some lessons that could inform the control of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD) occur sporadically in Africa and are associated with high case-fatality rates. Historically, children have been less affected than adults. The 2000–2001 Sudan virus-associated EVD outbreak in the Gulu district of Uganda resulted in 55 pediatric and 161 adult laboratory-confirmed cases. We used a series of multiplex assays to measure the concentrations of 55 serum analytes in specimens from patients from that outbreak to identify biomarkers specific to pediatric disease. Pediatric patients who survived had higher levels of the chemokine regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted marker and lower levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, soluble intracellular adhesion molecule, and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule than did pediatric patients who died. Adult patients had similar levels of these analytes regardless of outcome. Our findings suggest that children with EVD may benefit from different treatment regimens than those for adults.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) outbreaks occur sporadically in Africa and result in high rates of death. The 2000–2001 outbreak of Sudan virus-associated EHF in the Gulu district of Uganda led to 425 cases, of which 216 were laboratory confirmed, making it the largest EHF outbreak on record. Serum specimens from this outbreak had been preserved in liquid nitrogen from the time of collection and were available for analysis. These novel associations provide a better understanding of EHF pathophysiology and a starting point for researching new potential targets for therapeutic interventions.
The first cases of the current West African epidemic of Ebola virus disease (hereafter referred to as Ebola) were reported on March 22, 2014, with a report of 49 cases in Guinea. By August 31, 2014, a total of 3,685 probable, confirmed, and suspected cases in West Africa had been reported. To aid in planning for additional disease-control efforts, CDC constructed a modeling tool called EbolaResponse to provide estimates of the potential number of future cases. If trends continue without scale-up of effective interventions, by September 30, 2014, Sierra Leone and Liberia will have a total of approximately 8,000 Ebola cases. A potential underreporting correction factor of 2.5 also was calculated. Using this correction factor, the model estimates that approximately 21,000 total cases will have occurred in Liberia and Sierra Leone by September 30, 2014. Reported cases in Liberia are doubling every 15–20 days, and those in Sierra Leone are doubling every 30–40 days. The EbolaResponse modeling tool also was used to estimate how control and prevention interventions can slow and eventually stop the epidemic.
The filoviruses, Marburg virus (MARV) and Ebola virus, causes severe hemorrhagic fever with high mortality in humans and nonhuman primates. A promising filovirus vaccine under development is based on a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) that expresses individual filovirus glycoproteins (GPs) in place of the VSV glycoprotein (G). These vaccines have shown 100% efficacy against filovirus infection in nonhuman primates when challenge occurs 28–35 days after a single injection immunization. We examined the ability of arVSV MARV-GP vaccine to provide protection when challenge occurs more than a year after vaccination. Cynomolgusmacaques were immunized with rVSV-MARV-GP and challenged with MARV approximately 14 months after vaccination. Immunization resulted in the vaccine cohort of six animals having anti-MARV GP IgG throughout the pre-challenge period.
On August 29, 2014, Senegal confirmed its first case of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in a Guinean man, aged 21 years, who had traveled from Guinea to Dakar, Senegal, in mid-August to visit family. Senegalese medical and public health personnel were alerted about this patient after public health staff in Guinea contacted his family in Senegal on August 27. The patient had been admitted to a referral hospital in Senegal on August 26. He was promptly isolated, and a blood sample was sent for laboratory confirmation; Ebola was confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction at Institut Pasteur Dakar on August 29. The patient's mother and sister had been admitted to an Ebola treatment unit in Guinea on August 26, where they had named the patient as a contact and reported his recent travel to Senegal. Ebola was likely transmitted to the family from the brother of the patient, who had traveled by land from Sierra Leone to Guinea in early August seeking treatment from a traditional healer.
The Ebola virus surface glycoprotein (GP1,2) mediates host cell attachment and fusion, and is the primary target for host neutralizing antibodies. Expression of GP1, 2 at high levels disrupts normal cell physiology, and EBOV uses an RNA editing mechanism to regulate expression of the GP gene. In this study, we demonstrate that high levels of GP1, 2 expression impair production and release of EBOV VLPs, as well as infectivity of GP1, 2-pseudotyped viruses. We further show that this effect is mediated through two mechanisms. First, high levels of GP1, 2 expression reduce synthesis of other proteins needed for virus assembly. Second, viruses containing high levels of GP1, 2 are intrinsically less infectious, possibly due to impaired receptor binding or endosomal processing.
T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 1 (TIM-1) and other TIM family members were recently identified as phosphatidylserine (PtdSer)-mediated virus entry-enhancing receptors (PVEERs). These proteins enhance entry of Ebola virus (EBOV) and other viruses by binding PtdSer on the viral envelope, concentrating virus on the cell surface, and promoting subsequent internalization. The PtdSer-binding activity of the immunoglobulin-like variable (IgV) domain is essential for both virus binding and internalization by TIM-1. However, TIM-3, whose IgV domain also binds PtdSer, does not effectively enhance virus entry, indicating that other domains of TIM proteins are functionally important. Here, we investigate the domains supporting enhancement of enveloped virus entry, thereby defining the features necessary for a functional PVEER. Using a variety of chimeras and deletion mutants, we found that in addition to a functional PtdSer-binding domain PVEERs require a stalk domain of sufficient length, containing sequences that promote an extended structure.
The recent onset of epidemics caused by viruses such as Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, Lassa, coronavirus, West-Nile encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis, human immunodeficiency virus, dengue, yellow fever and Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever alerts about the risk these agents represent for the global health. Chikungunya virus represents a new threat. Surging from remote African regions, this virus has become endemic in the Indie ocean basin, the Indian subcontinent and the southeast of Asia, causing serious epidemics in Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Asia and Europe. Due to their epidemiological and biological features and the global presence of their vectors, chikungunya represents a serious menace and could become endemic in the Americas. Although chikungunya infection has a low mortality rate, its high attack ratio may collapse the health system during epidemics affecting a sensitive population.
We recently demonstrated that a soluble protein, Gas6, can facilitate viral entry by bridging viral envelope phosphatidylserine to Axl, a receptor tyrosine kinase expressed on target cells. The interaction between phosphatidylserine, Gas6, and Axl was originally shown to be a molecular mechanism through which phagocytes recognize phosphatidylserine exposed on dead cells. Since our initial report, several groups have confirmed that Axl/Gas6, as well as other phosphatidylserine receptors, facilitate entry of dengue, West Nile, and Ebola viruses. Virus binding by viral envelope phosphatidylserine is now a viral entry mechanism generalized to many families of viruses. We were the first to report that a bifunctional serum protein, Gas6, bridges envelope phosphatidylserine to a cell surface receptor. Axl.
High content image-based screening was developed as an approach to test a protease inhibitor small molecule library for antiviral activity against Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) and to determine their mechanism of action. RVFV is the causative agent of severe disease of humans and animals throughout Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Of the 849 compounds screened, 34 compounds exhibited 50% inhibition against RVFV. All of the hit compounds could be classified into 4 distinct groups based on their unique chemical backbone. Some of the compounds also showed broad antiviral activity against several highly pathogenic RNA viruses including Ebola, Marburg, Venezuela equine encephalitis, and Lassa viruses.
The current Ebola epidemic in Western Africa painfully illustrates both the devastating power of a deadly virus once introduced into a severely compromised health care system, and the unpreparedness of Western countries to respond appropriately. After at least 3857 casualties there has still been hardly any scientific evaluation of therapeutic or preventive treatments. The first uncontrolled observations of a new cocktail of monoclonal antibodies look promising, but given the size of the epidemic, only large-scale vaccination might be sufficient for effective control.
We have tested recombinant adenovirus vectors for their ability to protect IFNR(-/-) mice from challenge with Ebola virus and have analysed the humoral response generated after immunisation. The recombinant vaccines elicited good levels of protection in the knock-out mouse and the antibody response in IFNR(-/-) mice was similar to that observed in vaccinated wild-type mice. These results indicate that the IFNR(-/-) mouse is a relevant small animal model for studying ebolavirus-specific therapeutics.
Outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in sub-Saharan Africa are associated with case fatality rates of up to 90%. Currently, neither a vaccine nor an effective antiviral treatment is available for use in humans. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of the pyrazinecarboxamide derivative T-705 (favipiravir) against Zaire Ebola virus (EBOV) in vitro and in vivo. Initiation of T-705 administration at day 6 post infection induced rapid virus clearance, reduced biochemical parameters of disease severity, and prevented a lethal outcome in 100% of the animals. The findings suggest that T-705 is a candidate for treatment of Ebola hemorrhagic fever.
Viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) outbreaks, with high mortality rates, have often been amplified in African health institutions due to person-to-person transmission via infected body fluids. By collating and analyzing epidemiological data from documented outbreaks, we observed that diagnostic delay contributes to epidemic size for Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever outbreaks. In addition to improving the quality of care for common causes of febrile infections, increased and strategic use of laboratory diagnostics for fever could reduce the chance of hospital amplification of VHFs in resource-limited African health systems.
Ebola virus (EboV) is currently ravaging West Africa with estimated case fatality rate (CFR) of 52% Currently no drug treatment is available and immunoglobulin therapy is still at the rudimentary stage. For anti-EboV drug development, druggable viral and host protein targets, including human Furin are under intense investigation. Here, molecular dynamics simulation was performed on Apo-Furin, meta-guanidinomethyl-Phac-RVR-Amba-bound and two EboV glycoprotein (GP) 494-TGGRRTRREA-503/Furin complexes (Accurate and one ammo acid shift alignment). The results of the simulation established ligand-induced desolvation of Furin active site and structural compactness.
This paper examines how people in West Africa are reacting to the Ebola virus disease, an epidemic presently prevalent in the region. Certain lifestyle changes are suggested. Additionally, the heart of the paper focuses on the request by governments to be allowed access to experimental drugs, such as Zmapp and TKM-Ebola, for their infected populations. The author argues that granting such a request would circumvent research ethics procedures, which could potentially constitute significant risk to users of the drugs. The Pfizer Kano meningitis trial of 1996 is cited as an example to buttress how unapproved drugs could prove fatal.
Most London hospitals have dealt with at least one patent with suspected Ebola virus in the past month, a leading infection control nurse has claimed.
Emerging infectious diseases from animals pose significant and increasing threats to human health; places of risk are simultaneously viewed as conservation and emerging disease ‘hotspots'. The One World/One Health paradigm is an ‘assemblage' discipline. Extensive research from the natural and social sciences, as well as public health have contributed to designing surveillance and response policy within the One World/One Health framework. However, little research has been undertaken that considers the lives of those who experience risk in hotspots on a daily basis. As a result, policymakers and practitioners are unable to fully comprehend the social and ecological processes that catalyze cross-species pathogen exchange.
Ebola virus causes an acute hemorrhagic fever lethal in primates and rodents. The contribution of host immune factors to pathogenesis has yet to be determined and may reveal efficacious targets for potential treatment. Our data demonstrate that resistance to ebola infection is regulated by IL-10 and can be targeted in a prophylactic manner to protect against lethal hemorrhagic virus challenge.
There have been 3 outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) in Uganda in the last 2 years. VHF often starts with non-specific symptoms prior to the onset of haemorrhagic signs. HIV clinics in VHF outbreak countries such as Uganda see large numbers of patients with HIV 1/2 infection presenting with non-specific symptoms every day. Whilst there are good screening tools for general health care facilities expecting VHF suspects, we were unable to find tools for use in HIV or other non-acute clinics. Use of simple screening tools can be helpful in managing large numbers of symptomatic patients attending for routine and non-routine medical care (including HIV care) within a country experiencing a VHF outbreak, and can raise medical staff awareness of VHF outside of the epidemics.
The Ebola virus disease epidemic now constitutes an international public health emergency. Occupational and environmental health nurses can collaborate with international colleagues to halt Ebola virus transmission within Africa, protect workers from exposures, and prevent another pandemic.
As the recent Ebola outbreak demonstrates, visibility is central to the shaping of political, medical, and socioeconomic decisions. The symposium in this issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry explores the uneasy relationship between the necessity of making diseases visible, the mechanisms of legal and visual censorship, and the overall ethics of viewing and spectatorship, including theeffects of media visibility on the perception of particular “marked” bodies. Scholarship across the disciplines of communication, anthropology, gender studies, and visual studies, as well as a photographer's visual essay and memorial reflection, throw light on various strategies of visualization and (de) legitimation and link these to broader socioeconomic concerns.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a complex zoonosis that is highly virulent in humans. The largest recorded outbreak of EVD is ongoing in West Africa, outside of its previously reported and predicted niche. We assembled location data on all recorded zoonotic transmission to humans and Ebola virus infection in bats and primates (1976–2014). Using species distribution models, these occurrence data were paired with environmental covariates to predict a zoonotic transmission niche covering 22 countries across Central and West Africa. Vegetation, elevation, temperature, evapotranspiration, and suspected reservoir bat distributions define this relationship. At-risk areas are inhabited by 22 million people; however, the rarity of human outbreaks emphasises the very low probability of transmission to humans. Increasing population sizes and international connectivity by air since the first detection of EVD in 1976 suggest that the dynamics of human-to-human secondary transmission in contemporary outbreaks will be very different to those of the past.
The ongoing Ebola virus disease (Ebola) outbreak in West Africa is the largest and most sustained Ebola epidemic recorded, with 6,574 cases. Among the five affected countries of West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone. Guinea, Nigeria, and Senegal), Liberia has had the highest number cases (3,458). This epidemic has severely strained the public health and health care infrastructure of Liberia, has resulted in restrictions in civil liberties, and has disrupted international travel. As part of the initial response, the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) developed a national task force and technical expert committee to oversee the management of the Ebola-related activities. During the third week of July 2014, CDC deployed a team of epidemiologists, data management specialists, emergency management specialists, and health communicators to assist MOHSW in its response to the growing Ebola epidemic.
The monitoring of molecular systems usually requires sophisticated technologies to interpret nanoscale events into electronic-decipherable signals. We demonstrate a new method for obtaining read-outs of molecular states that uses graphics processing units made from molecular circuits. Because they are made from molecules, the units are able to directly interact with molecular systems. We developed deoxyribozyme-based graphics processing units able to monitor nucleic acids and output alphanumerical read-outs via a fluorescent display. Using this design we created a molecular 7-segment display, a molecular calculator able to add and multiply small numbers, and a molecular automaton able to diagnose Ebola and Marburg virus sequences.
Outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg virus diseases have recently increased in frequency in Uganda. This increase is probably caused by a combination of improved surveillance and laboratory capacity, increased contact between humans and the natural reservoir of the viruses, and fluctuations in viral load and prevalence within this reservoir. The roles of these proposed explanations must be investigated in order to guide appropriate responses to the changing epidemiological profile. Other African settings in which multiple filoviral outbreaks have occurred could also benefit from such information.
Infections with Marburg virus (MARV) and Ebola virus (EBOV) cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates (NHPs) with fatality rates up to 90%. A number of experimental vaccine and treatment platforms have previously been shown to be protective against EBOV infection. However, the rate of development for prophylactics and therapeutics against MARV has been lower in comparison, possibly because a small-animal model is not widely available. Here we report the development of a mouse model for studying the pathogenesis of MARV Angola (MARV/Ang), the most virulent strain of MARV. Infection with the wild-type virus does not cause disease in mice, but the adapted virus (MARV/Ang-MA) recovered from liver homogenates after 24 serial passages in severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice caused severe disease when administered intranasally (i.n.) or intraperitoneally (i.p.).
Ebola viruses can cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates with fatality rates up to 90%, and are identified as biosafety level 4 pathogens and CDC Category A Agents of Bioterrorism. To date, there are no approved therapies and vaccines available to treat these infections. Antibody therapy was estimated to be an effective and powerful treatment strategy against infectious pathogens in the late 19th, early 20th centuries but has fallen short to meet expectations to widely combat infectious diseases. Passive immunization for Ebola virus was successful in 2012, after over 15 years of failed attempts leading to skepticism that the approach would ever be of potential benefit. Currently, monoclonal antibody (mAbs)-based therapies are the most efficient at reversing the progression of a lethal Ebola virus infection in nonhuman primates, which recapitulate the human disease with the highest similarity.
Filoviruses are the causative agents of a severe and often fatal hemorrhagic fever with repeated outbreaks in Africa. They are negative sense single stranded enveloped viruses that can cross species barriers from its natural host bats to primates including humans. The small size of the genome poses limits to viral adaption, which may be partially overcome by conformational plasticity. Here we review the different conformational states of the Ebola virus (EBOV) matrix protein VP40 that range from monomers, to dimers, hexamers, and RNA-bound octamers. This – conformational plasticity that is required for the viral life cycle poses a unique opportunity for development of VP40 specific drugs. Furthermore, we compare the structure to homologous matrix protein structures from Paramyxoviruses and Bornaviruses and we predict that they do not only share the fold but also the conformational flexibility of EBOV VP40.
Existing mouse models of lethal Ebola virus infection do not reproduce hallmark symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, neither delayed blood coagulation and disseminated intravascularcoagulation, nor death from shock, thus restricting pathogenesis studies to non-human primates. Here we show that mice from the Collaborative Cross exhibit distinct disease phenotypes following mouse-adapted Ebola virus infection. Phenotypes range from complete resistance to lethal disease to severe hemorrhagic fever characterized by prolonged coagulation times and 100% mortality. Inflammatory signaling was associated with vascular permeability and endothelial activation, and resistance to lethal infection arose by induction of lymphocyte differentiation and cellular adhesion, likely mediated by the susceptibility allele Tek. These data indicate that genetic background determines susceptibility to Ebola hemorrhagic fever.
On March 30, 2014, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) of Liberia alerted health officials at Firestone Liberia. Inc. (Firestone) of the first known case of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) inside the Firestone rubber tree plantation of Liberia. The patient, who was the wife of a Firestone employee, had cared for a family member with confirmed Ebola in Lofa County, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia during March-April 2014. To prevent a large outbreak among Firestone's 8,500 employees, their dependents, and the surrounding population, the company responded by 1) establishing an incident management system, 2) instituting procedures for the early recognition and isolation of Ebola patients, 3) enforcing adherence to standard Ebola infection control guidelines, and 4) providing differing levels of management for contacts depending on their exposure, including options for voluntary quarantine in the home or in dedicated facilities.
Development of novel strategies targeting the highly virulent ebolaviruses is urgently required. A proteomic study identified the ER chaperone HSPA5 as an ebolavirus-associated host protein. Here, we show using the HSPA5 inhibitor (-)- epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) that the chaperone is essential for virus infection, thereby demonstrating a functional significance for the association. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo gene targeting impaired viral replication and protected animals in a lethal infection model. These findings demonstrate that HSPA5 is vital for replication and can serve as a viable target for the design of host-based countermeasures.
The Ebola epidemic continues largely unabated in West Africa, and the first few cases have spread to the United States and Europe. Especially in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Ebola poses an existential threat. The dread, despair, and death from Ebola are rampaging in these countries with their grossly inadequate health care and public health systems, precarious economies, and besieged governments. In these developing countries of West Africa, as well as in the developed countries where the infection has spread, Ebola poses a moral challenge to both individuals and societies. Foundational moral considerations should play a key role in public health decision-making to bring Ebola under control in an expeditious and just manner, as well as to prepare for the inevitable infectious disease outbreaks of the future.
Although the Ebola virus was recognized in 1976,1 until now Ebola virus disease (EVD) had been confined to remote areas in Africa, occurring in discrete outbreaks Even with the thousands of cases in thecurrent outbreak, most cases occur in areas where tragically few resources are available to care for affected patients – in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. However a small number of patients have been transferred to hospitals with modern technology. In addition, in-country transmission has led to new cases of Ebola in Nigeria, Spain, and the United States.
Nonsegmented negative strand (NNS) RNA viruses include many well-known human pathogens (e.g., rabies, measles, and Ebola viruses), as well as emerging viral threats (e.g., Nipah and Hendra Viruses). These viruses all encode a large L polymerase protein similarly organized into multiple domains that work in concert to enable virus genome transcription and replication. But how the unique L protein carries out the multiplicity of individual steps in these two distinct processes is poorly understood. Using two different approaches, i.e., exchanging individual domains in the C-terminal appendage region of the protein between two closely related VSV serotypes, and inserting unrelated protein domains, we shed light on requirements for domain-domain interactions and domain contiguity in polymerase function. These findings further our understanding of the conformational dynamics of NNS L polymerase proteins, which play an essential role in pathogenic properties of these viruses and represent attractive targets for the development of antiviral measures.
Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus cause severe hemorrhagic fever with high mortality and are potential bioterrorism agents. There are no available vaccines or therapeutic agents. Previous clinical trials evaluated transmembrane-deleted and point-mutation Ebolavirus glycoproteins (GPs) in candidate vaccines. Constructs evaluated in this trial encode wild-type (WT) GP from Ebolavirus Zaire and Sudan species and the Marburgvirus Angola strain expressed in a DNA vaccine.
The current outbreak of Ebola in western Africa has been unprecedented for various reasons, mostly because of its magnitude, its expansion across the borders of several countries of the region, and its propagation in capital cities. The outbreak initially involved no more than a few hundred people mainly in the rural parts of Africa, but by mid-September it had affected more than 5800 persons and caused more than 2500 deaths in four countries (mainly in urban locations).
Limited clinical and laboratory data are available on patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD). The Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone, which had an existing infrastructure for research regarding viral hemorrhagic fever, has received and cared for patients with EVD since the beginning of the outbreak in Sierra Leone in May 2014. The incubation period and case fatality rate among patients with EVD in Sierra Leone are similar to those observed elsewhere in the 2014 outbreak and in previous outbreaks. Although bleeding was an infrequent finding, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal manifestations were common.
Sierra Leone in West Africa is in a Lassa fever-hyperendemic region that also includes Guinea and Liberia. Each year, suspected Lassa fever cases result in submission of ca. 500–700 samples to the Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Diagnostic Laboratory in eastern Sierra Leone. Generally only 30%--40% of samples tested are positive for Lassa virus (LASV) antigen and/or LASV-specific IgM; thus, 60%--70% of these patients have acute diseases of unknown origin. To investigate what other arthropod-borne and hemorrhagic fever viral diseases might cause serious illness in this region and mimic Lassa fever, we tested patient serum samples that were negative for malaria parasites and LASV. Approximately 25% of LASV-negative patients had IgM to dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya, Ebola, and Marburg viruses but not to Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus.
Deep sequencing of RNAs produced by Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) or the Angola strain of Marburgvirus (MARV-Ang) identified novel viral and cellular mechanisms that diversify the coding and noncoding sequences of viral mRNAs and genomic RNAs. We identified previously undescribed sites within the EBOV and MARV-Ang mRNAs where apparent cotranscriptional editing has resulted in the addition of non-template-encoded residues within the EBOV glycoprotein (GP) mRNA, the MARV-Ang nucleoprotein (NP) mRNA, and the MARV-Ang polymerase (L) mRNA, such that novel viral translation products could be produced. Further, we found that the well-characterized EBOV GP mRNA editing site is modified at a high frequency during viral genome RNA replication.
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes a highly lethal hemorrhagic fever syndrome in humans and has been associated with mortality rates of up to 91% in Zaire, the most lethal strain. Though the viral envelope glycoprotein (GP) mediates widespread inflammation and cellular damage, these changes have mainly focused on alterations at the protein level, the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the molecular pathogenesis underlying this lethal disease is not fully understood. Here, we report that the mi-RNAs hsa-miR-1246. hsa-miR-320a and hsa-miR-196b-5p were induced in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) following expression of EBOV GP.
On July 20, 2014, an acutely ill traveler from Liberia arrived at the international airport in Lagos, Nigeria, and was confirmed to have Ebola virus disease (Ebola) after being admitted to a private hospital. This index patient potentially exposed 72 persons at the airport and the hospital. The Federal Ministry of Health, with guidance from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), declared an Ebola emergency. Lagos, (pop. 21 million) is a regional hub for economic, industrial, and travel activities and a setting where communicable diseases can be easily spread and transmission sustained. Therefore, implementing a rapid response using all available public health assets was the highest priority. National public health emergency preparedness agencies in the region, including those involved in Ebola responses, should consider including the development of an emergency operation center to improve the ability to rapidly respond to urgent public health threats.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is an emerging pathogen that causes severe disease in human. MERS-CoV is closely related to bat coronaviruses HKU4 and HKU5. Evasion of the innate antiviral response might contribute significantly to MERS-CoV pathogenesis, but the mechanism is poorly understood. In this study, we characterized MERS-CoV 4a protein as a novel immunosuppressive factor that antagonizes type I interferon production. MERS-CoV 4a protein contains a double-stranded RNA-binding domain capable of interacting with poly (I • C). PACT targeting might be a common strategy used by different viruses, including Ebola virus and herpes simplex virus 1, to counteract innate immunity.
Caring for patients with Ebola virus disease requires strict biosafety protocols to eliminate exposure and ensure containment. Training and competency verification were critical to creation of a safe environment for nursing staff involved in the direct care of two patients with Ebola virus disease at Emory University Hospital. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing.
Filoviruses cause disease with high case fatality rates and are considered biological threat agents. Licensed post-exposure therapies that can be administered by the oral route are desired for safe and rapid distribution and uptake in the event of exposure or outbreaks. Favipiravir or T-705 has broad antiviral activity and has already undergone phase II and is undergoing phase III clinical trials for influenza. Here we report the first use of T-705 against Ebola virus. T-705 gave 100% protection against aerosol Ebola virus E718 infection; protection was shown in immune-deficient mice after 14 days of twice-daily dosing. T-705 was also shown to inhibit Ebola virus infection in cell culture. T-705 is likely to be licensed for use against influenza in the near future and could also be used with a new indication for filovirus infection.
Ebola virus (EBOV) and Marburg virus (MARV) belong to the family Filoviridae. Filoviruses cause severe filovirus hemorrhagic fever (FHF) in humans, with high case fatality rates, and represent potential agents for bioterrorism and biological weapons. It is necessary to keep surveillance of filoviruses, even though there is no report of their isolation and patients in China so far. To characterize MARV morphology, the Lake Victoria marburgvirus—Leiden was stained negatively and observed under a transmission electron microscope which is one of important detection methods for filoviruses in emergencies and bioterrorism. MARV showed pleomorphism, with filamentous, rod-shaped, cobra-like, spherical, and branch-shaped particles of uniform diameter but different lengths. Pleomorphism of negatively stained MARV is summarized in this article, so as to provide useful information for possible electron microscopic identification of filoviruses in China.
Ebola virus is from the Filoviridae family of viruses and is one of the most virulent pathogens known with ∼60% clinical fatality. The Ebola virus negative sense RNA genome encodes seven proteins including viral matrix protein 40 (VP40), which is the most abundant protein found in the virions. Within infected cells VP40 localizes at the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane (PM), binds lipids, and regulates formation of new virus particles. Expression of VP40 in mammalian cells is sufficient to form virus like particles (VLPs) that are nearly indistinguishable from the authentic virions. However, how VP40 interacts with the PM and forms VLPs is for the most part unknown.
AIDS emerged in 1981, breaking a period of proud medical progresses in controlling infectious diseases with antimicrobials and vaccines. In an unprecedented way, HIV has attracted much attention for three decades, driving the discovery of new extraordinary molecular diagnostic tools and antiviral drugs. As a result, advances in antiretroviral therapy have made it possible to change HIV infection into a chronic illness. However, the prospects for HIV eradication in the short term are not envisioned for the more than 35 million people worldwide estimated to be living with HIV.
Emergency nurses are accustomed to responding to any kind of presentation, and so should not be alarmed by the latest national guidance on identifying and caring for patients with the Ebola virus.
Nurses should apply the same measures for identifying and caring for children with suspected.
Ebola virus as required for adult nursing care, according to the RCN.
Filoviruses are filamentous lipid-enveloped viruses and include Ebola (EBOV) and Marburg, which are morphologically identical but antigenically distinct. These viruses can be very deadly with outbreaks of EBOV having clinical fatality as high as 90%. In 2012 there were two separate Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda that resulted in 25 and 4 fatalities, respectively. The lack of preventive vaccines and FDA-approved therapeutics has struck fear that the EBOV could become a pandemic threat. The Ebola genome encodes only seven genes, which mediate the entry, replication, and egress of the virus from the host cell. The EBOV matrix protein is VP40, which is found localized under the lipid envelope of the virus where it bridges the viral lipid envelope and nucleocapsid.
Lipid-enveloped viruses contain a lipid bilayer coat that protects their genome and helps to facilitate entry into the host cell. Filoviruses are lipid-enveloped viruses that have up to 90% clinical fatality and include Marbug (MARV) and Ebola (EBOV). These pleomorphic filamentous viruses enter the host cell through their membrane-embedded glycoprotein and then replicate using just seven genes encoded in their negative-sense RNA genome. EBOV budding occurs from the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane (PM) and is driven by the matrix protein VP40, which is the most abundantly expressed protein of the virus. VP40 expressed in mammalian cells alone can trigger budding of filamentous virus-like particles (VLPs) that are nearly indistinguishable from authentic EBOV. VP40, such as matrix proteins from other viruses, has been shown to bind anionic lipid membranes.
Marburg and Ebola hemorrhagic fevers are severe, systemic viral diseases affecting humans and non-human primates. They are characterized by multiple symptoms such as hemorrhages, fever, headache, muscle and abdominal pain, chills, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Elevated liver-associated enzyme levels and coagulopathy are also associated with these diseases. Marburg and Ebola hemorrhagic fevers are caused by (Lake Victoria) Marburg virus and different species of Ebola viruses, respectively. They are enveloped, single-stranded RNA viruses and belong to the family of filoviridae. Case fatality rates of filovirus disease outbreaks are among the highest reported for any human pathogen, ranging from 25 to 90% or more. Outbreaks of Marburg and Ebola hemorrhagic fever occur in certain regions of equatorial Africa at irregular intervals. Since 2000, the number of outbreaks has increased.
Infectious diseases can constitute public health emergencies of international concern when a pathogen arises, acquires new characteristics, or is deliberately released, leading to the potential for loss of human lives as well as societal disruption. A wide range of risk drivers are now known to lead to and/or exacerbate the emergence and spread of infectious disease including global trade and travel, the overuse of antibiotics, intensive agriculture, climate, change, high population densities, and inadequate infrastructures, such as water treatment facilities. Where multiple risk drivers interact, the potential impact of a disease outbreak is amplified. The varying temporal and geographic frequency with which infectious disease events occur adds yet another layer of complexity to the issue. There is a need to move beyond narrow models of risk to better account for the interdependencies between health and other sectors so as to be able to better mitigate and respond to the risks posed by emerging infectious disease.
There is growing concern in Sub-Saharan Africa about the spread of the Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, and the public health burden that it ensues. Since 1976, there have been 885,343 suspected and laboratory confirmed cases of EVD and the disease has claimed 2,512 cases and 932 fatality in West Africa. There are certain requirements that must be met when responding to EVD outbreaks and this process could incur certain challenges. For the purposes of this paper, five have been identified: (i) the deficiency in the development and implementation of surveillance response systems against Ebola and others infectious disease outbreaks in Africa; (ii) the lack of education and knowledge resulting in an EVD outbreak triggering panic, anxiety, psychosocial trauma, isolation and dignity impounding, stigmatisation, community ostracism and resistance to associated socio-ecological and public health consequences; (iii) limited financial resources, human technical capacity and weak community and national health system operational plans for prevention and control responses, practices and management; (iv) inadequate leadership and coordination; and (v) the lack of development of new strategies, tools and approaches, such as improved diagnostics and novel therapies including vaccines which can assist in preventing, controlling and containing Ebola outbreaks as well as the spread of the disease.
The purpose of this report is to emphasize the potential utility for the use of melatonin in the treatment of individuals who are infected with the Ebola virus. The pathological changes associated with an Ebola infection include, most notably, endothelial disruption, disseminated intravascular coagulation and multiple organ hemorrhage. Melatonin has been shown to target these alterations. Numerous similarities between Ebola virus infection and septic shock have been recognized for more than a decade. Moreover, melatonin has been successfully employed for the treatment of sepsis in many experimental and clinical studies. Based on these factors, as the number of treatments currently available is limited and the useable products are not abundant, the use of melatonin for the treatment of Ebola virus infection is encouraged. Additionally, melatonin has a high safety profile, is readily available and can be orally self-administered; thus, the use of melatonin is compatible with the large scale of this serious outbreak.
Nipah virus is a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) pathogen that causes severe respiratory illness and encephalitis in humans. To identify novel small molecules that target Nipah virus replication as potential therapeutics, Southern Research Institute and Galveston National Laboratory jointly developed an automated high-throughput screening platform that is capable of testing 10,000 compounds per day within BSL-4 biocontainment. Using this platform, we screened a 10,080-compound library using a cell-based, high-throughput screen for compounds that inhibited the virus-induced cytopathic effect. Development of HTS capability under BSL-4 containment changes the paradigm for drug discovery for highly pathogenic agents because this platform can be readily modified to identify prophylactic and postexposure therapeutic candidates against other BSL-4 pathogens, particularly Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa viruses.
The size of the world's largest Ebola outbreak now ongoing in West Africa makes clear that further exportation of Ebola virus disease to other parts of the world will remain a real possibility for the indefinite future. Clinicians outside of West Africa, particularly those who work in emergency medicine, critical care, infectious diseases, and infection control, should be familiar with the fundamentals of Ebola virus disease, including its diagnosis, treatment, and control. In this article we provide basic information on the Ebola virus and its epidemiology and microbiology. We also describe previous outbreaks and draw comparisons to the current outbreak with a focus on the public health measures that have controlled past outbreaks. We review the pathophysiology and clinical features of the disease, highlighting diagnosis, treatment, and hospital infection control issues that are relevant to practicing clinicians.
The Ebola virus glycoprotein mucin-like domain (MLD) is implicated in Ebola virus cell entry and immune evasion. Using cryo-electron tomography of Ebola virus-like particles, we determined a three-dimensional structure for the full-length glycoprotein in a near-native state and compared it to that of a glycoprotein lacking the MLD. Our results, which show that the MLD is located at the apex and the sides of each glycoprotein monomer, provide a structural template for analysis of MLD function.
Understanding the interactions between host and pathogen is important for the development and assessment of medical countermeasures to infectious agents, including potential biodefence pathogens such as Bacillus anthracis, Ebola virus, and Francisellatularensis. This review focuses on technological advances which allow this interaction to be studied in much greater detail. Namely, the use of “omic” technologies (next generation sequencing, DNA, and protein microarrays) for dissecting the underlying host response to infection at the molecular level; optical imaging techniques (flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy) for assessing cellular responses to infection; and biophotonic imaging for visualising the infectious disease process. All of these technologies hold great promise for important breakthroughs in the rational development of vaccines and therapeutics for biodefence agents.
Marburg virus (MARV) and Ebola virus (EBOV), members of the family Filoviridae, represent a significant challenge to global public health. Currently, no licensed therapies exist to treat filovirus infections, which cause up to 90% mortality in human cases. To facilitate development of antivirals against these viruses, we established two distinct screening platforms based on MARV and EBOV reverse genetics systems that express secreted Gaussia luciferase (gLuc). The first platform is a mini-genome replicon to screen viral replication inhibitors using gLuc quantification in a BSL-2 setting. The second platform is complementary to the first and expresses gLuc as a reporter gene product encoded in recombinant infectious MARV and EBOV, thereby allowing for rapid quantification of viral growth during treatment with antiviral compounds.
The evolving Ebola epidemic in West Africa is unprecedented in its size and scope, requiring the rapid mobilization of resources. It is too early to determine all of the ethical challenges associated with the outbreak, but these should be monitored closely. Two issues that can be discussed are (1) the decision to implement and evaluate unregistered agents to determine therapeutic or prophylactic safety and efficacy and (2) the justification behind this decision. In this paper, I argue that it is not compassionate use that justifies this decision and suggest three lines of reasoning to support the decision.
The response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa of the governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, local WHO representatives, international organisationswith WHO at the helm, and the international community has been much too slow. The help that is now at last being given has come much too late, and, with a few notable exceptions, it is far too little. The European Union, including the Netherlands, is distinguishing itself by its absence. It does not appear to have got through to Europe that, even if it is only in its own interest, it must offer far more help to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – and quickly.
The keynote addresses, by David Margolis and Myron Cohen, tackled two emerging areas of HIV research, to find an HIV “cure” and to prevent HIV transmission, respectively. These topics were discussed further in other presentations – a cure seems to be a distant prospect but there are exciting developments for reducing HIV transmission. TDF-containing vaginal rings and GSK-744, as a long-lasting injection, offer great hope. There were three mini-symposia. Although therapy with TDF/FTC gives excellent control of HBV replication, there are only a few patients who achieve a functional cure. Myrcludex, an entry inhibitor, is active against both HBV and HDV. The recent progress with HBV replication in cell cultures has transformed the search for new antiviral compounds. The HBV capsid protein has been recognized as key player in HBV DNA synthesis. Unexpectedly, compounds which enhance capsid formation, markedly reduce HBV DNA synthesis. The development of BCX4430, which is active against Marburg and Ebola viruses, is of great current interest.
In order to produce polyvalent vaccines based on single rVSV vector, we investigated the immunogenicity, antibody neutralizing activity, and antigenic determinant domain of Zaire Ebola's fragment MFL (aa 393–556) that contains furinsite and internal fusion loop. Both the recombinant protein and the recombinant plasmid of fragment MFL elicited high levels of antibody, similar to those of Zaire Ebola GP (ZGP). The MFL fragment of ZGP also elicited high levels ofneutralizing antibody and induced moderate cellular immune response in mice, as revealed by the proliferation and cytokine secretion of splenocytes. Through the analysis of the induction of neutralizing antibody by pVAXl -based recombinant plasmids that expressed truncated fragments of MFL, we found that the domain containing the internal fusion loop and the furin site was the major contributor of fragment MFL’s immunogenicity.
Filoviruses are emerging pathogens and causative agents of viral haemorrhagic fever. Case fatality rates of filovirus disease outbreaks are among the highest reported for any human pathogen, exceeding 90%. Licenced therapeutic or vaccine products are not available to treat filovirus diseases. Candidate therapeutics previously shown to be efficacious in non-human primate disease models are based on virus-specific designs and have limited broad-spectrum antiviral potential. Here we show that BCX4430, a novel synthetic adenosine analogue, inhabits infection of distinct filoviruses in human cells. Biochemical, reporter-based and primer-extension assays indicate that BCX4430 inhabits viral RNA polymerase function, acting as a non-obligate RNA chain terminator. Post-exposure intramuscular administration of BCX4430 protects against Ebola virus and Marburg virus disease in rodent models. Most importantly, BCX4430 completely protects cynomolgus macaques from Marburg virus infection when administered as late as 48 hours after infection.
Work with infectious Ebola viruses is restricted to biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratories, presenting a significant barrier for studying these viruses. Life cycle modeling systems, including minigenome systems and transcription- and replication-competent virus-like particle (trVLP) systems, allow modeling of the virus life cycle under BSL2 conditions; however, all current systems model only certain aspects of the virus life cycle, rely on plasmid-based viral protein expression, and have been used to model only single infectious cycles. We have developed a novel life cycle modeling system allowing continuous passaging of infectious trVLPs containing a tetracistronicminigenome that encodes a reporter and the viral proteins VP40, VP24, and GP1,2. This system is ideally suited for studying morphogenesis, budding, and entry, in addition to genome replication and transcription.
Clinicians caring for patients infected with Ebola virus must be familiar not only with screening and infection control measures, but also with management of severe disease. By integrating experience from several Ebola epidemics with best practices for managing critical illness, this report focuses on the clinical presentation and management of severely ill infants, children, and adults with Ebola virus disease. Fever, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and anorexia are the most common symptoms of the 2014 West African outbreak. Profound fluid losses from the gastrointestinal tract result in volume depletion, metabolic abnormalities (including hyponatremia, hypokalemia, and hypocalcemia), shock, and organ failure. Overt hemorrhage occurs rarely. The case fatality rate in West Africa is at least 70% and individuals with respiratory, neurological, or hemorrhagic symptoms have a higher risk of death. There is no proven anti-viral agent to treat Ebola virus disease, although several experimental treatments may be considered. Even in the absence of anti-viral therapies, intensive supportive care has the potential to markedly blunt the high case fatality rate reported to date. Optimal treatment requires conscientious correction of fluid and electrolyte losses.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) has remained rare since its initial description in 1976. The current outbreak of EVD in West Africa is of particular concern, accounting for more than a third of the cases of EVD ever reported. Indications are that at the time of writing the outbreak is far from over. This is also the first recorded outbreak of EVD in this region of Africa. This editorial commentson the current outbreak, reasons why it has proved challenging to contain, signs, symptoms and transmission of EVD, and implications for South Africa.
Antibody-based products are not widely available to address many global health challenges due to high costs, limited manufacturing capacity, and long manufacturing lead times. There are now tremendous opportunities to address these industrialization challenges as a result of revolutionary advances in plant virus-based transient expression. This review focuses on some antibody-based products that are in preclinical and clinical development, and have scaled up manufacturing and purification (mg of purified mAb/kg of biomass). Plant virus-based antibody products provide lower upfront cost, shorter time to clinical and market supply, and lower cost of goods (COGs). Further, some plant virus-based mAbs may provide improvements in pharmacokinetics, safety and efficacy.
Social scientists undertaking studies of transnational medical research in developing countries focus on 'trial communities': networks of funders, institutions, researchers, clinical staff, fieldworkers and study participants. They relate these to the political economy that brings powerful research resources to poor settings. Whereas bioethicists tend to consider universal ethical requirements, social scientists examine how ethics are practiced in given situations in the light of the concerns and interests held by different parties involved in medical research. In conditions of poverty, high morbidity and weak public health services, research subjects are heavily induced by the prospect of high quality medical care and other benefits that researchers seem to offer. Studies of medical research undertaken by well-established internationally funded institutions in Africa show that parents are keen to have their children ‘join’ projects at these organisations.
The current Ebola outbreak is the worst global public health emergency of our generation, and our global health care community must and will rise to servethose affected. Aid organizations participating in the Ebola response must carefully plan to carry out their responsibility to ensure the health, safety, and security of their responders. At the same time, individual health care workers and their employers must evaluate the ability of an aid organization to protect its workers in the complex environment of this unheralded Ebola outbreak. We present a minimum set of operational standards developed by a consortium of Boston-based hospitals that a professional organization should have in place to ensure the health, safety, and security of its staff in response to the Ebola virus disease outbreak.
The discovery of novel classes of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) has revolutionized medicine. Long thought to be a mere cellular housekeeper, surprising functions have recently been uncovered. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), are a representative of the class of short ncRNAs, play a fundamental role in the control of DNA and protein biosynthesis and activity as well as pathology. Currently, miRNAs are being investigated as diagnostic and prognostic markers and potential therapeutic targets in kidney transplantation for such indolent processes as ischaemia-reperfusion injury, humoral rejection or viral infections. It is realistic to believe that monitoring of renal allograft recipients in the future will include genome-wide miRNA profiling of biological fluids. Based on these individual profiles, an informed decision on therapeutic consequences will be possible. Proof of this concept in men comes from studies in such indolent viral infections as Ebola and hepatitis C, where anti-miR therapy led to sustained viral clearance. In this review, we summarize the basis of the recent ncRNA revolution and its implication for kidney transplantation.
The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa is a global threat. It is of particular concern that many front line medical personnel are being infected, with nurses who have close contact with patients at particular risk.
Ebola virus (EBOV) infections cause lethal hemorrhagic fever in humans, resulting in up to 90% mortality. EBOV outbreaks are sporadic and unpredictable in nature; therefore, a vaccine that is able to provide durable immunity is needed to protect those who are at risk of exposure to the virus. This study assesses the long-term efficacy of the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based vaccine. These studies confirm that vaccination able to confer long-term protection against Ebola infection in mice and guinea pigs, and support follow-up studies in non-human primates.
Ebola causes highly lethal hemorrhagic fever in humans with no licensed countermeasures. Its virulence can be attributed to several immunoevasion mechanisms: an early inhibition of innate immunity started by the downregulation of type I interferon, epitope masking and subversion of the adaptive humouralimmunity by secreting a truncated form of the viral glycoprotein. Deficiencies in specific and non-specific antiviral responses result in unrestricted viral replication and dissemination in the host, causing death typically within 10 days after the appearance of symptoms. This review summarizes the host immune response to Ebola infection, and highlights the short- and long-term immune responses crucial for protection, which holds implications for the design of future vaccines and therapeutics.
Filovirus infections cause fatal hemorrhagic fever characterized by the initial onset of general symptoms before rapid progression to severe disease; the most virulent species can cause death to susceptible hosts within 10 days after the appearance of symptoms. Before the advent of monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy, infection of nonhuman primates (NHPs) with the most virulent filovirus species was fatal if interventions were not administered within minutes. A novel nucleoside analogue, BCX4430, has since been shown to also demonstrate protective efficacy with a delayed treatment start. This review summarizes and evaluates the potential of current experimental candidates for treating filovirus disease with regard to their feasibility and use in the clinic, and assesses the most promising strategies towards the future development of a pan-filovirus medical countermeasure.
Starting from February 2014, the Ebola virus outbreak had spread across West African countries within a few months and caused great concerns of the World Health Organization. Currently no effective vaccines or drugs have been available for prevention and treatment of Ebola virus infection. This paper gives a brief review of the epidemics and pandemics, the biological characteristics of Ebola virus, the potential antiviral drug targets, and research progress of vaccine and drug development against the virus.
During antiviral defense, interferon (IFN) signaling triggers nuclear transport of tyrosine-phosphorylated STAT1 (PY-STAT1), which occurs via a subset of karyopherin alpha (KPNA) nuclear transporters. Many viruses, including Ebola virus, actively antagonize STAT1 signaling to counteract the antiviral effects of IFN. Ebola virus VP24 protein (eVP24) binds KPNA to inhibit PY-STAT1 nuclear transport and render cells refractory to IFNs. We describe the structure of human KPNA5 C terminus in complex with eVP24. In the complex, eVP24 recognizes a unique nonclassical nuclear localization signal (NLS) binding site on KPNA5 that is necessary for efficient PY-STAT1 nuclear transport.
The recent wave of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Western Africa and efforts to control the disease where the health system requires strengthening raises a number of ethical challenges for healthcare workers practicing in these countries. We discuss the implications of weak health systems for controlling EVD and limitations of the ethical obligation to provide care for patients with EVD using Nigeria as a case study. We highlight the right of healthcare workers to protection that should be obligatorily provided by the government. Where the national government cannot meet this obligation, healthcare workers only have a moral and not a professional obligation to provide care to patients with EVD. The national government also has an obligation to adequately compensate healthcare workers that become infected in the course of duty.
The Ebola outbreak that is sweeping across West Africa is the largest, most volatile, and deadliest Ebola epidemic ever recorded. Liberia is the most profoundly affected country, with more than 3500 infections and 2000 deaths recorded in the past 3 months. We evaluated the contribution of disease progression and case fatality to transmission and to examine the potential for targeted interventions to eliminate the disease. Projections are based on the initial dynamics of the epidemic, which may change as the outbreak and interventions evolve.
These results underscore the importance of isolating the most severely ill patients with Ebola within the first few days of their symptomatic phase.
Humans have been fighting against the Ebola virus disease (EVD) since its first outbreak in 1976 in southern Sudan and Yambuku in Zaire which lies on the Ebola River. According to the data from the World Health Organization, the first outbreak claimed 431 lives in 1976, and the disease awoke transiently in Sudan three years later and then disappeared for 15 years, afterwards. Following that, large outbreaks appeared in 1995 in Zaire with 250 deaths of people, 2001–2002 in Uganda with 224 deaths, 2002–2003 in Congo with 128 deaths, and 2007 in Congo with 187 deaths. In 2014, the most severe and complicated outbreak swept through the West African countries having already taken 1069 lives, with the situation seeming to be out of control. To date, there have been 15 outbreaks in Africa, which have caused 4362 infected cases and claimed 2659 lives. The pandemics of Ebola show obvious independence from any season. Humans are generally susceptible to the Ebola virus without gender or age variation. The natural reservoir of the Ebola virus still remains unclear. During the past 40 years or so, the EVD disappeared after an outbreak in one region and erupted in another region without any warning. The difficulty in understanding the spreading pattern of Ebola was compared to that of the wave-particle duality of light.
Political Structure (Process, law)
The article focuses on Idris Ali’s (Dongola: A Novel of Nubia), analyzing the way in which Ali’s work reflects the emergence of a diasporic consciousness among Egyptian Nubians. Foundational to this diasporic consciousness is the experience of loss, displacement, and marginalization occasioned by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. The novel registers a Nubian counter-narrative to Arab-Egyptian nationalism framed primarily through historical memory, racial identity, and language rooted in Afro-Nubian culture and history; however, the subversive potential of this Nubian counter-narrative is undercut by the novel’s representation of gender dynamics.
The 2011–2014 controversies between the Ethiopian Government and Muslim communities on the role of Islam in Ethiopia have highlighted the precarious nature of religious relations in Ethiopia. Statements by public figures and religious leaders recently have drawn attention to the nature and scope of the Ethiopian secular state order. This paper describes the recent Muslim protest movement and the response to it by the government in the light of the secular state model. While the challenges to it also extend to the large Christian community in Ethiopia, the problems became prominent mainly in the case of the Muslims, who contest perceived ‘government interference’ in their community life and self-organization.
In early September 1975, a Johannesburg newspaper broke the news that an Ivorian delegation led by Laurent Dona Fologo (Minister of Information) was about to start a twelve-day visit to South Africa. The planned trip was the culmination of a dialogue diplomacy that Ivory Coast initiated in the late 1960s and was a clear departure from the isolation policy that African states were trying to implement so as to pressure the apartheid regime in Pretoria. Even though the visit had been arranged by a black South African, the Ivorian scheme was bound to stir controversy. Indeed, the very news of sending a “Dialogue mission” to South Africa led President MarienNgouabi of the Congo to dismiss the initiative as a “grotesque masquerade.” Other African opinion-makers echoedNgouabi’s rejection, including Paul Bernetel—an influential columnist at the Paris-based weekly JeuneAfrique—who found the trip ill timed.
This article examines political critics of Tanzania’s first president, Julius K. Nyerere. While his detractors varied greatly in both ideological and sociological terms, the three major groups studied here shared a sharp intellectual frustration with Nyerere’s effective utilization of humility as a political weapon to control debate, court international support, and silence opposition. Foreign critics, primarily European writers, were divided principally by their social proximity to Nyerere – older white “decolonizers” lamented their friend’s embrace of authoritarian tactics to achieve Utopian ends, while younger writers instead saw a distant and unworldly figure best understood in abstract philosophical terms.
This article discusses traditional leadership laws that entrench the ‘tribal’ boundaries which make up the former homelands, and recent policies that foreclose landownership for the majority of rural people. I argue that these laws and policies reinforce, rather than address, the legacy of the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts. Distorted constructs of unilateral chiefly power are mobilised in attempts to create a separate legal zone of customary authority that undermines the citizenship rights of those living within the boundaries of the former bantustans.
The article is a case study of work organization at the Services d’Egypte of the Suez Canal Company from the outbreak of World War II to the company’s nationalization in 1956. In this multinational and multicultural workplace, organizational hierarchies and division of labor were traditionally defined according to “national” identities, while maintaining a strict segregation between européens and indigènes, to use the company’s terminology. Starting in the 1930s, the company faced new measures of economic nationalism imposed by the Egyptian government, including required quotas of Egyptian personnel. These measures progressively redefined the political boundaries of the company’s action in the management of its workforce. Using unpublished archival documents from the company’s personnel files, this article analyzes the processes of feminization and Egyptianization of the company’s office workers during World War II and the 1950s. The process was driven by a precise organizational strategy, based on both “racial” and “gender” criteria, which aimed to redefine the company’s internal hierarchies and to keep management and decision making in the hands of the “Europeans,” while complying with the terms of the conventions of 1937 and 1949 that regulated the relationship between the company and the Egyptian government.
From the mid 2000s, militant local political protests have been widespread in poor townships and shack settlements across South Africa, recalling mobilisations of a previous decade. Youth have been at the forefront of these protests, as the weight of the job and housing crisis has fallen disproportionately on those under 35. Similarly to the 1980s, this has created fears over a youth-led rebellion, with youth portrayed as militant, angry, disillusioned and available for direct action. Significantly, very little research has captured the role of youth in these urban uprisings from the perspective of youth themselves. This paper provides insight into the lives of a number of youth who participated in the 2011 protests in Zandspruit informal settlement, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
This essay reads Melvin B. Tolson’s Libretto for the Republic of Liberia as a poem undergirded by a transnational and multi-ethnic politics of identification. Previous scholars of Tolson’s work have argued that his poetry expands and redefines the possibilities inherent in modernist poetics. Building on these claims, I point to a specific and heretofore unremarked strategy through which he accomplishes this goal: namely, a bold affective optimism that both presages Afro-futurism and counters political ideologies founded on racial difference.
The Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is currently being discussed in Parliament, aims at reforming the oil industry. But it also reveals the guiding forces of local politics. The PIB exposes the limitations of the state’s ambitions, desire and capacity for reform, and it is strong evidence for the regional divisions and social tensions catalysing resistance against the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, which is accused of ethnic bias in favour of the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta.
The actual and perceived conflicts between customary law and human rights law, especially in issues dealing with gender equality, have remained a major challenge in Africa. Some of these conflicts are further complicated by the varying and contradictory interpretation of some customary laws by the courts. Different approaches have been adopted at different times and in different places to deal with some of these conflicts. One of the most controversial areas of customary law has been the traditional exclusion of women from property inheritance. This paper takes a critical look at how the courts in Botswana have dealt with the issue of the right to inherit the homestead or family home.
In Zanzibar, the figure of Julius Nyerere is being recast in debates over sovereignty, belonging and nationhood. Unlike mainland Tanzania, where he is upheld as the Father of the Nation, the first president of Tanganyika and Tanzania is increasingly portrayed in Zanzibar as the Enemy of the Nation responsible for the Isles’ predicament. This article gives insight into the terms, actors and circulation of this pejorative narrative in relation to two central historical events: the 1964 Revolution and the Union. It also shows how such anti-Nyererism mediates anxious concerns over cultural distinctiveness and Islam.
Throughout its 100-year history, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has evolved, being utilised as a mechanism of control by Britain and South Africa during the colonial and apartheid eras, respectively. More recently, SACU has undergone a process of increased democratisation and neo-liberal prioritisation reflecting Africa’s desire to engage and compete more effectively in the world economy. Current pressures to reformulate SACU, focused on renegotiating the institutional infrastructure and the all-important Revenue Distribution Formula (RDF), reflect a subtle but significant potential change in the governance framework mediating relations between member states: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS), and South Africa.
Although still predominantly rural, Rwanda is one of the world’s fastest-urbanizing countries. This paper considers the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) approach to urban development in the context of intense pressure on land and a stated long-term agenda of moving towards a future that is ‘100% urban’. The RPF government has won plaudits for its transformation of Kigali, and its Land Tenure Regularisationprogramme is proceeding at a pace few anticipated. Its approach to the urban question remains, however, both highly controversial abroad and contested within the country.
In this article I explore how ordinary people gained access and lost rights to land over the course of the twentieth century in Letaba (present-day Mopani) District, Limpopo Province. I provide a periodised account of this process, focusing on homesteads and individuals rather than on ‘communities’. I show that rights to land were less static, and personal histories of access to and loss of land less linear than is often imagined in popular narratives and official discourse. The 1913 Natives Land Act was one part of a process that made it increasingly difficult for ordinary people to access land independently, whether as owners or as tenants, and to be mobile and respond easily to new opportunities.
This article contributes to revisionist interpretations of Zambian history by exploring both the development of Lozi secessionism over the course of the twentieth century and its present manifestations. Starting with the origins of Lozi particularism in the challenges mounted by the Lozi elite to Northern Rhodesia’s early colonial dispensation, it traces the dynamics of subsequent contests between the Lozi, colonial and imperial governments, and emerging African nationalists. Following the negotiations which culminated in the signing of the Barotseland Agreement on the eve of independence, the article describes the movement’s postcolonial trajectory from its apparent collapse in the face of an antagonistic Zambian state to its resurgence following the end of the one-party state.
Since the collapse of Rwanda’s state institutions in 1994, including the state’s security apparatus, the military has been at the centre of the country’s politics and development. Crucial to the political and economic strategy of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is the national army. However, analysis is scarce on the politics of the Rwandan military and how it has been constituted and forged since the RPF came to power. This paper seeks to address this under-researched area by investigating the processes used by the government of Rwanda to develop its national defence forces. In doing so it avoids simplistic narratives such as ethnic subjugation and instead highlights the unique factors leading to the creation of today’s RDF and how it has been forged through various socialization experiences such as training, fighting together and peacekeeping as well as an emphasis on welfare and political education.
This article examines the role of the University of Zambia (UNZA) in relation to the liberation of southern Africa, and seeks to cast light on Zambia’s often ambivalent role. A contradiction emerged between the Zambian government’s support for liberation abroad and its intolerance of criticism at home. The university came to be seen as a centre of opposition and was often a place of conflict. I seek to answer a number of questions. What was the role of exiled academics and intellectuals, such as Jack Simons, Ben Magubane, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Lewis Nkosi and Fay Chung, at the university in the first two decades of its existence? Why did issues relating to the liberation struggle become points of conflict in the major crises of 1971 and 1976?
This paper provides a reading of changing white subjectivity in the context of South Africa’s transition to republican status in the early 1960s. It explores such a theme through a reading of photographs of architectural ruins in East London that were taken by Joseph Denfield from approximately 1960 to 1965. Such an analysis is done through the lens of existing literature on this historical moment in South Africa, which highlights rapid and at times violent changes taking place nationally. What remains key in the paper is South Africa’s severance of ties with the British Commonwealth and its British imperial past, which rendered the state officially more ‘Afrikaans’ in character.
Children and youth, in whom visions of national development are invested, are central to post-conflict state-building efforts. In the case of Rwanda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has initiated an ambitious programme of state re-engineering that seeks to transform Rwanda into a knowledge-based economy and thereby achieve middle-income status by 2020. Success or failure of this imagined future is largely contingent on the 65% of the population under age 25. Through cross-analysis of three research studies, this paper explores how RPF policies have converged with the lives of children and youth, so as to get a pulse on the post-genocide micro-social environment and thereby examine the effectiveness of the RPF’s governance.
Zambian political history has been viewed predominantly through the prism of the national, by focusing on high politics, official ideology and Big Men. The local level equally has to be taken into consideration, as local forces and interests have shaped the translation of national politics in the everyday lives of voters. Moreover, considering the local context can facilitate an understanding of national politics itself. Through the case of Mwinilunga District, the dynamics of the local–national interplay before and after independence will be examined. What were the origins, motives and long-term implications of political opposition in the area?
In this essay, I set in dialogue a documentary film, Abderrahmane Sissako’s Rostov-Luanda (1997), and a novel, Mongane Wally Serote’s Scatter the Ashes and Go (2002), to examine the role of the war in Angola in the cultural imaginary of African intellectuals. Angola was the site of one of the hot conflicts of the Cold War; yet it evokes not only tensions between the superpowers, but also political solidarities and cultural alliances that incorporate and go beyond the black Atlantic.
This article compares changing imaginations of African nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and the black diaspora through the lens of literary genre in two popular magazines, South Africa’s Drum and its lesser-known contemporary from the Central African Federation, African Parade. As traveling literary systems that contain a variety of literary forms, popular magazines are useful for theorizing new relationships between genre and geography. In particular, I consider African Parade’suse of interstitial “migrant forms” to map the simultaneously urban and rural, national and transnational contours of the federation. Migration is a thematic as well as a formal feature of these texts, which reconfigure narratives of permanent settlement in the city—a type of story that was popular in Drum and epitomized by the figure of the deterritorialized gangster, or tsotsi.
Using data from the Comparative National Elections Project 2004 and 2009 South African post-elections surveys, this paper argues that political discussion within interpersonal discussant networks plays a primary role in shaping political attitudes and vote choice in South Africa. The extent of partisan homogeneity or heterogeneity within discussant networks has important yet distinct implications for voting behaviour. While homogeneous discussion networks tend to encourage stronger partisan loyalties and fewer defections in vote choice, people in heterogeneous networks show less consistency in their attitudes and behaviour during elections.
Responding to Dolan Hubbard’s proposal to enhance scholarship on “Hughes and the international stage,” this essay addresses race within the context of Hughes’s numerous writings inspired by the Spanish Civil War, which he covered as a war correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American. Through close readings of a number of texts, I argue that the category of race provides a productive and neglected entry into reading the conflict in which the violent supremacist ideology of Spain’s colonial Army of Africa, chief instigators of the 1936 uprising, was contested by the opposing ideology of the African American combatants of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers.
Sol Plaatje and his contemporaries described the traumatic effects of the Natives Land Act 27 of 1913: forced expulsions of Africans and their animals, followed by desperate livestock sales at slaughterhouse prices. In many places, previously secure sharecroppers on white-owned farms became roaming exiles accompanied by their skeletal sheep and cattle, many of which starved along the road. Yet no single overarching narrative can capture the new law’s immediate effects, as the dynamics of changes were geographically idiographic. This Act is perhaps the most thoroughly studied piece of legislation in South Africa’s past, but the historical meta-narrative should be contested.
Using the Kariba dam project as a case study, this article examines some of the biases and interdependencies of development planning in 1950s Northern Rhodesia in order to consider Zambia’s trajectory into independence. The Kariba dam, a highly controversial hydro-electricity scheme in the short-lived Central African Federation, crystallises the ambivalent practices of building nations – materially, politically and ideologically. Colonial imbalances of development planning, most notably its ‘urban bias’, were bound to have a profound effect on the postcolonial period. I illustrate this, first with regard to Kariba’s materiality. Given that infrastructures remain long after the planners and decision-makers leave, one must explore their potential for pre-structuring social change, including some types of change and excluding others.
A remarkable process of ethnic engineering has been taking place in neighbouring Burundi and Rwanda. After a failed democratization attempt in the early 1990s, both countries experienced an extremely violent transition process. Despite the many similarities between the two countries, they have adopted radically different approaches to address long-standing ethnic divisions. While Rwanda has opted for a policy based on ethnic amnesia and an integrationist policy centredaround civic identity, Burundi has institutionalized its societal segmentation through ethnic power-sharing along the lines of Lijphart’sconsociational model.
Psychological Studies
HIV/AIDS and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) are contemporary epidemics associated with significant social stigma in which communities affected suffer from social rejection, violence, and diminished quality of life. We compare and contrast stigma related to HIV/AIDS and EVD, and strategically think how lessons learned from HIV stigma can be applied to the current EVD epidemic. Stigma disrupts quality of life, whether it is associated with HIV infection or EVD. When addressing EVD, we must think beyond the immediate clinical therapeutic response, to possible HIV implications of serum treatment. There are emerging social concerns of stigma associated with EVD infection and double stigma associated with EVD and HIV infection. Drawing upon lessons learned from HIV, we must work to empower and mobilize prominent members of the community, those who recovered from the disease, and organizations working at the grassroots level to disseminate clear and accurate information about EVD transmission and prevention while promoting stigma reduction in the process.
Social Organization (Culture contact, migration, modernization)
In recent years, ‘African homophobia’ has become a spectacle on the global stage, making Africa into a pre-modern site of anti-gay sentiment in need of Western intervention. This article suggests that ‘homophobia’ in post-2009 Malawi is an idiom through which multiple actors negotiate anxieties around governance and moral and economic dependency. I illustrate the material conditions that brought about social imaginaries of inclusion and exclusion – partially expressed through homophobic discourse – in Malawi. The article analyses the cascade of events that led to a moment of political and economic crisis in mid-2011, with special focus on how a 2009 sodomy case made homophobia available as a new genre of social commentary.
Malawi is a socially conservative country with a complicated dependence on donors. The treatment of same-sex sexuality in the nation reflects these factors. Homosexuality in Malawi is disparagingly conflated with western decadence and the nation’s debate on gay rights convolves homosexual acts, homosexual identities, urbanisation, westernisation and secularism. This article will combine observations from 11 months of living in rural Malawi and an analysis of the major Malawian newspapers between 18 May and 20 October 2012, a period where gay rights was a major news issue. It will explore why the arguments found in Malawian newspapers in favour of removing laws against same-sex sexual activity were unconvincing to rural Malawians and why both rural Malawians and the media perceived a conflict between homosexuality and a rurally embedded static Malawian culture.
This essay reads the abikufigure in Helen Oyeyemi’sThe Icarus Girl (2005) in its new context of migration. This context, read as diasporic, provides a framework in which the abikuchild confronts structures of racialized interpretation. Oyeyemi’s novel invites us to consider the tension between the narrative of abikuas Yoruba myth/legend with a particular material culture and its new diasporic double as a subject of psychoanalytic interpretation—Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The essay reads this interpretive tension, which is triggered by the protagonist’s split racial identity, as an opportunity for reexamining the signifying practice of the abikufigure within changing spatiotemporal contexts.
This paper draws from ethnographic research in Eritrea to explore new configurations of power and belonging in the Eritrean gatekeeper state. The gatekeeper state is a theory describing state-society relations in Africa in which the patrimonial state sits astride narrow channels of wealth creation, relying on control of the circulation of citizens, funds, and resources within and across national borders. The escape—illegal emigration—of citizens from Eritrea and the remittances sent home to families in rural areas have potentially been a source of challenge to state authority, but this paper argues that the Eritrean state has developed new gatekeeping strategies that operate in and through porous borders, transnational kinship networks, and the aspirations of citizens to escape civil service.
Institutions play an important role in the success or failure of social models, as they promote or limit particular political and economic activities. Central to this point is the understanding that institutions and traditions are in a constant state of flux. Taken in this light, state and non-state institutions are continually being ‘re-invented’ to reflect a particular society’s changing economic, political and cultural division of power. Immanent in this constant process of change is the possibility of transforming formal political institutions to more closely reflect the needs of human beings. The South African National AIDS Council provides a useful case study to illuminate how non-state social alliances can transform state institutions to reflect the needs of society. Through the mobilisation of non-state and community-based organisations, the South African HIV/AIDS movement successfully influenced the South African government to expand the public health response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Emigration is effectively illegal in Eritrea; however, Eritrea cultivates a loyal, active diaspora. Graduated emigration policies create a territorially bound population to provide cheap labor to the state and a diaspora that contributes financial resources to the government. The celebration of diasporic nationalism has successfully produced a longing to return among the diaspora, but it has inadvertently produced a longing to leave among Eritreans trapped in Eritrea. These contradictions are explored by examining classroom debates about emigration. Emigration debates allow teachers and students to articulate conflicting beliefs about national duty, personal aspirations, and the state.
Building on Africanist and third wave feminist critiques of Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic, this essay examines how the notion of diaspora is interpreted by non-anglophone women writers of African descent. In particular, it focuses on the work and careers of two women authors: Afro-Brazilian novelist and academic ConceiçãEvaristo and Mozambican fiction writer and essayist Paulina Chiziane. Both of these authors participate in international events about the black diaspora and their work has been widely translated. Despite playing active roles in transnational academic and literary communities, however, these two authors repeatedly focus on national concerns in their fiction.
The editorial reproduces several recurring themes that have been particularly prominent in popular accounts of the Natives Land Act in 2013/14, as South Africans have marked the centenary of the Act, looked back over twenty years of democracy under the African National Congress (ANC) and negotiated the rough and tumble of the national elections of May 2014. These themes include the primary significance of the Act in shaping South Africa’s persistent, race-inscribed spatial inequalities and socio-economic troubles; landlessness as a burning contemporary social issue, and, flowing directly from these points, the urgency of the largely still unmet need for redress for the land injustices of the past.
Food and foodways play a key role in protecting and preserving cultural sustainability. The smell of familiar foods can instantly evoke a series of emotions and desires because food customs are carriers of identity, memory, and tradition, yet accessing recognizable foods is often difficult and challenging for migrants to the United States, because of lack of availability, cost, and a host of other factors. This essay considers the ways in which some West Africans from Ghana negotiate their surroundings—and identities—when obtaining African foods in America. It argues that cultural sustainability is attainable in the United States as a result of ethnic markets, gardens, and other food centers that serve as conduits between home and the host country.
Migrant were highly exposed to health hazards because of the illegal routes of the movement. Socio-economic variables with respect to age. Education and unemployment were predictors of the migration phenomenon. Providing safety protection from potential health hazards before leaving the country, proper social and psychological rehabilitation of returnees is recommended.
Symbol Systems (Religion, ritual, world view)
The association between Christian faith and development is a crucial one in the African context where the Christian mission has been intimately linked with notions of development, especially in the field of education. However in the west there has been a disassociation between Christian faith and development through the Enlightenment which adopted a critical attitude towards all things religious. This has led to the anomalous situation where students of theology and development from Africa studying in the secular academy are directed towards the social sciences instead of theology.
The epistemological paradigm that has dominated the western world since the Enlightenment has been the Cartesian one based on an abstract concept of mind and the separation of the observer from an objectified world. An alternative paradigm was presented in Phenomenology, notably by Martin Heidegger whose concept of dasein re-situated the human being in the world. The Phenomenological tradition has recently been “rediscovered” in contemporary anthropology and a pre-modern epistemology of participation foregrounded.
The fortieth anniversary of the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (JTSA) offers a chance to reflect on its beginnings with a view to outlining the theological task for the present time. JTSA’s name reflects a orientation to ‘doing theology’ in the context of southern Africa—to confront the burning issues of the day through disciplined, high quality theological discourse. Over time, that intent has been challenged both by a dramatically changing context, and by several anti-intellectual currents within the wider Christian community.
Environmental and economic crises, including land degradation from drought and increased global food prices, have become localized challenges for communities across the Sahel. Towns throughout central Senegal have struggled to maintain the agricultural and business enterprises on which they once relied. Ndem, a village within this region, has addressed these challenges through its artisanal cooperative, now incorporated into a nongovernmental organization. While Ndem’s leaders have sound business plans, this essay argues that the continued viability of both the village and the cooperative is the result of a community-shared spiritual motivation for the work. Islam, the Murid Sufi order, and the Baay Fall suborder of the Muridiyya provide teachings that directly influence Ndem’s spiritual life and business practices.
Ibo and the entire group of the Querimbas Islands have been among the crucial natural harboring areas of the Mozambican northern coast. The main islands have been meeting points for people and traders from many countries within the Indian Ocean and a place where Islam has flourished since at least the 16th century. Nowadays in Ibo, quranic school education is also offered by women teachers who, as well as men, perform Muslim celebrations typical of the locally present brotherhoods. This paper will analyze the present trend in Muslim practices on Ibo Island and Pemba town and the relevant role women played and are playing.
In 1881 the Pedi king Sekhukhune and the German missionary Johannes August Winter were drawn into a close relationship which included a wide-ranging discussion of their beliefs and values. It also involved their families. Indeed, the most startling outcome of their interactions was the planned betrothal of Sekhukhune to the missionary's infant daughter, Anna. Their developing alliance was cut short by tragedy but their brief encounter provides telling glimpses into the worlds that they inhabited.
This paper tells the story of the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa from the time of its first issue in December 1972 to the end of 1980. This history is intimately connected to the early history of academic theology in English in southern Africa and to the emergence of what would be called, at the end of the first decade of the journal, contextual theology. The first eight years of the journal – thirty-two issues from December 1972 to September 1980 – have been systematically consulted. The paper argues that, while only incidentally anticipating contextual theology as developed by the Institute for Contextual Theology in the 1980s, during its first years of existence the journal created a space for a local theology to develop. Its thirty-year-long existence contributed to the production of a theology rooted in the social, economic, cultural and political context of the people of southern Africa.
David Livingstone travelled in central Africa from the early 1850s until his death in 1873. His call for others to continue his work has inspired missionaries since then. Our paper explores this aspect of Livingstone’s legacy through interviews with Church of Scotland missionaries who lived and worked in Northern Rhodesia/Zambia from the 1950s to the 1970s. The interviews reveal that Livingstone was remembered in both overt and subtle ways. We argue that his career provided both temporal and geographical markers from which our interviewees assessed their own work and experiences a century later. Recalling Livingstone’s life provided historical and geographical meaning for our interviewees as they worked in those same spaces that Livingstone did. The paper also discusses the changes to missionary life in the 1960s, when Zambia achieved independence.
‘Ithink I would rather cross the African continent again than undertake to write another book. It is far easier to travel than to write about it’. So wrote David Livingstone in the preface to his best-selling work, Missionary Travels (1857). Yet writing was what Livingstone spent much of his time in Africa doing, and on any scrap of paper he could find. And it was not travelling but writing, or rather more precisely publishing, which made his fortune. The European exploration of Africa during the nineteenth century has so often been treated as a story of action and adventure, that it is easy to overlook the fact that it was also a literary event.
This article analyses patronage as the context and framework for the functioning of cultural production in postcolonial Morocco. In particular, it focuses on the ideological and the political underpinnings of different state patronage schemes before and in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the accession to government of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD). The argument is that the power struggle between the state (spearheaded by the monarchy) and the PJD translates in the field of culture into a debate about al-fānanādhīf (‘clean art’) versus obscurantism. While the PJD activists proclaim al-fānanādhīf as the conceptual framework for assessing art and cultural production, their secular opponents accuse them of plotting to curb creative freedom and institutionalize an obscurantist cultural project.
An interview study of 44 Bangladeshi patients and relatives in eastern London demonstrated frequent appeals to God and deprecation of personal agency. This paper offers an interpretation of this apparent ‘fatalism’, which argues for the logical downplaying of human agency and ambition in archaic Arabia, contemporary rural Sylhet and among first generation Sylheti migrants in London.
This volume of essays contains some of the best recent work on the Victorian missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873), gathered together for the bicentenary of his birth. The following introduction delineates ‘Livingstone Studies’ as a field of research and directs attention to its inherently interdisciplinary nature. It summarises the various papers in the collection, gathered together under the two broad thematic categories of ‘writing’ and ‘remembrance’. Additionally, this introduction argues that the papers speak well beyond their Livingstone focus. In the first section scholars are directed to the margins of empire, as the articles articulate the importance of ‘peripheral’ spaces and intercultural interaction in shaping Victorian identities and geographical and imperial knowledge.
The life of David Livingstone has been much re-valued in modern times. In the course of the transformation of his reputation from that of saintly hero to flawed proponent of imperial rule a whole range of myths and misconceptions has arisen. The structuring of his life as a path from triumph to tragedy to atonement has skewed an understanding of the degree of continuity that actually prevailed in respect of his status and public profile, even during the years after his return from the supposedly failed Zambezi expedition in 1864 until his return to Africa in 1868. The availability of online press resources enable us to examine the ways in which he was received during this period.
Diaspora and homeland, seemingly opposite concepts, constitute the foundation of a historical narrative in which immigrant groups are forced to leave their homeland and live in a foreign country, while continuing to dream of returning to their old home. In the case of Zionism, specifically the Beta Israel community in Ethiopia, the conditions were set to fulfill the dream of returning “home”—to Jerusalem. Yet, the realization of this collective dream uncovered a complex relation between the concept of “diaspora” and “homeland.” This article discusses the relationship between diaspora and homeland—Africa and Israel—in Hebrew Ethiopian-Israeli literature.
This article examines the portrayal of the meeting between the Scottish missionary David Livingstone and the Welsh-American journalist Henry Morton Stanley in Stanley’s popular travelogue How I Found Livingstone (1872). In order to represent the meeting as emblematic of a new transatlantic ‘Anglo-Saxon’ fellowship, Stanley was forced to elide his own Welsh and Celtic identity. In Stanley’s account of the meeting, the journalist’s devotion to an Anglo-Saxon ideal of emotional propriety is further dramatised through Stanley’s ambiguous status as both expressive author and repressed protagonist.
Pentecostals are well known for their enthusiastic, spontaneous, holistic and transcendent spirituality. While they are often criticised for offering little contribution to the much needed process of social transformation due to their tendency to spiritualise social problems, Pentecostals are praised for their propensity to proclaim their message in the framework of the worldview of the particular people to whom the message is addressed and their emphasis on those parts of the message that respond to peoples’ aspirations and fears. Yet, the place of Pentecostal spirituality is not always appreciated within the academy.
After several years of mission on the Belgium Congo, spending time on evagelization and ethnography, the Jesuit priest Gustavo Le Paige take place in the oasis of San Pedro de Atacama (North of Chile), and begins a plan of arqueologics excavations that will take him to excavate several thousand corpses of the Atacameñoscementeries. From the analysis of his archive, I will show that behind this apparent disciplinary turn as an effect of his Atlantic jump (from ethnology to arqueology, from Africa to America), we find some continuity of interest in a fetishisized materiality as remains of “disappearing” cultures. In the Congo as in Atacama, Le Paige became an agent of resignification of the objects, transforming their cult value (fetishs from Congo or nkissireligion, mumified bodies and grave goods of the Atacama’s “abuelos”) in exhibition value for the museistics collections of “civilized” societies.
Wangari Maathai of Kenya (1940–2011), the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 and became a leading environmental activist. This article reflects on her life and environmental achievements in order to analyse her call to environmental justice. Formed by both her African cultural values and her Christian faith, she developed an ecological spirituality. Her understanding of her commitment reflects a feminist interpretation of discernment—seeking and finding God in one’s experience. This is named as transformative praxis.
The archives of two German Lutheran mission societies hold rich data on, and interpretations of, Transvaal history. But this material cannot simply be mined for ‘facts’. It was assembled in a process of interaction in which the perceptions and values of both missionaries and converts were challenged, culturally translated and modified. The missionaries’ views and perceptions became entangled with the thought patterns of colonial society and were challenged by African converts.
This essay examines the representation of and role played by religion in the works of Nigerian writer ChimamandaNgoziAdichie over a period of almost fifteen years, from her first published book, the collection of poems Decisions (1997), to one of her most recent short stories, “Miracle” (2011). By establishing a dialogue between Adichie’s creative writing, her nonfictional texts, and statements from interviews, this article outlines the development of the writer’s reflections on her own Catholic faith, but also on Islam, Pente-costalism, and traditional Igbo religion. It is argued that the recurrent features and evolutions discerned in Adichie’s work variously testify to her growing awareness of the interaction between the ethnic, religious, social, and political forces that have shaped postcolonial Nigeria; to her willingness to denounce religious extremism in all its guises; and to her suspicion that the main role of spiritual movements may be to help human beings in the repression of their metaphysical anxieties.
The prophetic discourse about economic justice in South Africa has been mainly influenced by Black theology, Latin American Liberation theology and African theology. In the case of the influences from the Americas, economic justice is a salient dimension, with Marxism as a main critical tool of society and mode of discourse. This prophetic mode of discourse limits dialogue and economic transformation because it is an exclusive mode of discourse. We argue that a dialogical discourse, informed by the ideas of justice imbedded in economic theories (in example Adam Smith, John M. Keynes and John Rawls) and their implications for contemporary society, is required.
Urban Studies
One of the most complex disciplines in electrical engineering is power system protection which requires not only the proper understanding of the different components of a power system and their behaviours but also a good knowledge and analysis of the abnormal circumstances and failures that can occur in any element of a power system. Moreover, the rapid changing and development in relays principles as well as in their technologies are additional factors that oblige those people working in the field to expand and update continuously their knowledge. In this paper, we shed light in the evolution of protective relays since the onset of electrical energy to currently. We try also to foresee the future prospects and trends in this area.
This study investigated the performance of a compression ignition engine operating with sunflower ethyl ester. A thermodynamic analysis, including energy and exergy analysis at different engine loads (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%), was conducted. The study calculated the first and second law efficiency, effective work, heat exergy losses and exergy destruction values at 10 different engine speeds for 5 loads. Maximum work, maximum thermal efficiency, maximum exergy efficiency and maximum volumetric efficiency are determined to be 6.45 kW, 0.26, 0.24 and 0.71 respectively. Finally, optimum operating conditions are discussed and it was determined that the engine should be operated at a lower engine speed for partial loads.
This paper presents a comparative study on the most popular control strategies used to control high power, Direct Drive Wind Turbines. The studied wind turbine is equipped with a supervision scheme in order to fulfil Grid connection requirements (GCR). For the generator-side converter, performances of the Field Oriented Control (FOC) and Direct Torque Control (DTC) are compared. Concerning the grid-side converter, Voltage Oriented Control (VOC) and Direct Power Control (DPC) are examined. The comparison is based on various criteria mainly, steady-state and transient performances. In addition, performances are evaluated in terms of low voltage ride through capabilities (LVRT), power limitation and reactive power control.
In 1960, the Malian government began investing in cultural heritage as pan of a calculated nation-building project. When, in the early 1990s, the political project began to converge with the new economic strategy of commodifying culture through tourism, the work became more complex. This study begins with an overview of Mali’s heritage work and its long-standing partnership with UNESCO. It then presents case studies of Djenné and San, heritage sites inscribed on UNESCO heritage lists. Finally, an epilogue addresses the fragility of the state’s nationalist project exposed during the recent insurgency in the north and lists measures that Mali has recently taken to promote a shared cultural patrimony among its citizens in the postconflict era.
Carbon dioxide is an innocuous refrigerant for the environment. It is a substance of current interest in the refrigeration area. Its good thermodynamic and heat transfer properties have placed it in an excellent position for substituting refrigerants that contribute to global warming. This paper describes carbon dioxide as a refrigerant, the main characteristics that have made it a substance of current interest, its applications in subcritical and transcritical cycles and a general vision of its usage at international level.
This project entails the design of a low voltage DC microgridsystem for rural electrification in South Africa. Solar energy is freely available, environmental friendly and it is considered as a promising power generating source due to its availability and topological advantages for local power generation. Off-grid solar systems are perceived to be a viable means of power delivery to households in rural outlying areas in South Africa as solar panels can be used almost anywhere in the country. The design presented in this paper is based on the power demand estimation, photovoltaic panel selection, battery sizing and wire selection for the distribution system.
As recently as the year 2010, renewable energy contributed less than 1% of all the energy sources in South Africa. Possible reasons include the lack of private sector investment in Renewable Energy technologies. By way of a structured interview methodology, this paper explores the reasons why private investors are reluctant to invest in renewables. The responses point to political, economic, social and technological barriers limiting private investment in renewable energy. Other barriers that were identified include poverty, low levels of education, limited technological readiness and access to the electricity grid. Some of these barriers are specific to the South African context.
Optimization of the production process in biodiesel production holds huge prospects. A reduced cost option is the optimization of process variables that affect yields and purify of biodiesel, which was achieved in this study. Optimized production and direct effects of process variables on the production and quality of methyl ester biodiesel fuels from the non-edible seed oils of sandbox seed was carried out. Catalyst nature and concentration, alcohol to triglyceride molar ratio, mixing speed, reaction time and temperature were taken into consideration as variables to their individual response on the yields, viscosity and specific gravity of the methyl esters produced.
This paper investigates the enhancement in voltage stability achieved while connecting a variable speed wind turbine (VSWT) driven electrically excited synchronous generator (EESG) into power systems. The wind energy conversion system (WECS) uses an AC-DC-AC converter system with an uncontrolled rectifier, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controlled dc-dc boost converter and adaptive hysteresis controlled voltage source converter (VSC). The MPPT controller senses the rectified voltage (VDC) and traces the maximum power point to effectively maximize the output power. With MPPT and adaptive hysteresis band current control in VSC, the DC link voltage is maintained constant under variable wind speeds and transient grid currents. The effectiveness of the proposed WECS in enhancing voltage stability is analysed on a standard IEEE 5 bus system, which includes examining the voltage magnitude, voltage collapse and reactive power injected by the systems.
While the electrification of households in South Africa since 1994 has been impressive, many of the major energy services in poor households are still met by traditional fuels such as, on the Highveld, coal, in coastal regions, paraffin; and in rural areas by wood. Their use is associated with a range of challenges, from chronic respiratory tract infections to asphyxiation by carbon monoxide to massive fires that destroy not only homes but also lives. State interventions such as the provision of Free Basic Electricity are costly and do not appear to be contributing towards any solutions. The challenges are assessed, and a range of mitigations proposed.
Biodiesel was produced from jatrophacurcas oil of Kenyan origin through a two-step acid-base catalytic transesterification process. The relevant physicochemical properties of the produced biodiesel were tested according to appropriate standards and were found to be within the requirements. Engine tests were carried out in an Audi, 1.9 litre, turbocharged direct injection, compression ignition engine at different loads. Emissions were measured by a Horiba emission analyser system while combustion data was collected by a data acquisition system, from which, cylinder pressure and rate of heat release of the test engine in every crank angle were calculated.
This essay examines the deployment of written and visual narratives in Chris Abani’s novel GraceLand (2004). The novel treats photographs, films, and other visual representations of cities as emerging cultural narratives in Nigeria. Images of other urban spaces, such as Las Vegas and Budapest, speak to the younger generation’s desire for an alternative urban existence outside of the Lagos slum, while traditional oral and written narratives represent fading notions of cultural solidarity, nationhood, and collective national identity. While Abani’s novel reaffirms the important role literary exchange has played in formations of diaspora, it opens a space for us to consider the ways in which visual narratives are renegotiating and redefining contemporary notions of it.
This research focuses on the problem of powering a remote and mobile satellite ground station, where utility power is unavailable. It focuses on the use of photovoltaic energy, which is now widely accepted as an alternative source of energy. However, PV suffers from low conversion efficiency, non-linear I-V characteristics, which depend on temperature changes and the earth rotation. The research focuses on accurate determination of the ground station power budget whose total power demand involves an azimuth and rotator function and a current which varies depending on the stages of communication with the satellite. The power budget is used to determine the size, the ratings of solar generators, batteries and the system components.
This paper presents simulated hybridized solar-wind generation as an alternative for rural dwellers that do not have access to a conventional grid connection. Solar and wind were used as the main sources of energy with battery storage. Each power source has a DC-DC converter to control the power flow. An axial flux permanent magnet generator, which is suitable for a location with a low wind speed, was driven by the wind turbine. By using this generator, the efficiency of the system increased since certain losses were removed. The perturbation and observation method of MPPT is used to achieve maximum power extraction from the solar panel. The hybrid system was modelled in Matlab/Simulink software.
Scientists agree that rising electricity usage of the rapidly growing human race to improve its standard of living is negatively affecting the environment. To create a sustainable environment for future generations, renewable and environmentally friendly resources have to be exchanged for the present finite resources. In South Africa, coal plants are responsible for more than 90% of electricity production. This means that action has to be taken now to start a process of change to sustainable electricity resources.