Family Filoviridae includes a set of etiological agents of human hemorrhagic fevers distributed in Africa: Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV), Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV), Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV), Taï Forest ebolavirus (TAFV), Marburg marburgvirus (MMARV). Historiography and recent taxonomical structure of Filoviridae family are considered in the review. The discussed data of laboratory and ecological-virological field researches demonstrate the presence of a natural reservoir of filoviruses among fruit-bats (Chiroptera, Megachiroptera) which carry filovirus infection without clinical signs but allocate viruses with urine, saliva, excrements, and sperm, as well as contain viruses in blood and internals. The potential hosts of filoviruses are various mammal species including the higher primacies (Anthropoidea) and the humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). A brief comparison of anatomic and morphologic features of fruit bats and bats (Chiroptera, Microchiroptera) belonging to another suborder of chiropterans is presented. The description of the basic characteristics of the four types of epidemic outbreaks linked with Filoviridae-associated fevers — speleological (from Ancient Greek σπήλαιον — cave), forest, rural, and urban are given; their possible transformation directions are considered as well.
The COVID-19 pandemic which began in March 2020 has again drawn attention to the problem of treating primary viral pneumonia (PVP), wherein damage to the tissues of the lower respiratory tract including functionally important alveolocytes occurs as a result of cell infection by pathogens of the Virae Kingdom. Whereas treatment of bacterial pneumonia is based on the basic approach related to the use of antibiotics (which effectiveness needs to be verified more often than ever due to the “curse of the resistance effect” — that, however, does not cancel the essence of the basic approach), efficient PVP treatment is feasible only in case of available etiotropic, but catastrophically few, drugs. Such drugs in case of the influenza A virus (Articulavirales: Orthomyxoviridae, Alphainfluenzavirus) have been known since the second part of the XXth century. However, no consensus was achieved among clinicians regarding particularly dangerous human coronaviruses (Nidovirales: Coronaviridae, Betacoronavirus) which threat has driven the world epidemiology in the XXIst century: SARS-CoV (subgenus Sarbecovirus), MERS-CoV (Merbecovirus), SARS-CoV-2 (Sarbecovirus). And we should be prepared to the fact that increase in population density and scaling up of anthropogenic impact on ecosystems elevates a probability of overcoming interspecies barriers by natural focal viruses and their penetration into the human population with adverse epidemic consequences. Therefore, PVP therapy should be developed systematically in the nearest future. Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) as the components of non-specific innate immunity against a wide range of infectious pathogens: bacteria (Bacteria), microscopic fungi (Fungi) and viruses (Virae) may serve as a platform for developing such system. Our review justifies a way to select such platform and provides well-known examples of successfully used AMP in treatment of PVP and related pathological conditions.
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