Ebola virus – epidemiology, diagnosis, and control: threat to humans, lessons learnt, and preparedness plans – an update on its 40 year's journey

Abstract

Ebola virus (EBOV) is an extremely contagious pathogen and causes lethal hemorrhagic fever disease in man and animals. The recently occurred Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks in the West African countries have categorized it as an international health concern. For the virus maintenance and transmission, the non-human primates and reservoir hosts like fruit bats have played a vital role. For curbing the disease timely, we need effective therapeutics/prophylactics, however, in the absence of any approved vaccine, timely diagnosis and monitoring of EBOV remains of utmost importance. The technologically advanced vaccines like a viral-vectored vaccine, DNA vaccine and virus-like particles are underway for testing against EBOV. In the absence of any effective control measure, the adaptation of high standards of biosecurity measures, strict sanitary and hygienic practices, strengthening of surveillance and monitoring systems, imposing appropriate quarantine checks and vigilance on trade, transport, and movement of visitors from EVD endemic countries remains the answer of choice for tackling the EBOV spread. Herein, we converse with the current scenario of EBOV giving due emphasis on animal and veterinary perspectives along with advances in diagnosis and control strategies to be adopted, lessons learned from the recent outbreaks and the global preparedness plans. To retrieve the evolutionary information, we have analyzed a total of 56 genome sequences of various EBOV species submitted between 1976 and 2016 in public databases.

Emerging novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)—current scenario, evolutionary perspective based on genome analysis and recent developments

“…The emergency pathogens could be counteracted by opting immediate and timely international collaborative efforts, cooperative efforts between human and animal health sectors. Other effective measures include One health approach, implementation of effective prevention and control strategies, rapid communication and networking, and exploring advances in science and technology for developing rapid and confirmatory diagnostics, enhancing disease surveillance and monitoring, implementation of strict biosecurity measures, and timely efforts toward designing appropriate and effective vaccines and therapeutics (Cheng et al 2020;Cohen 2020;Cyranoski 2020;Lu 2020;Munjal et al 2017;Singh et al 2017).…”

Emerging and Transboundary Animal Viral Diseases: Perspectives and Preparedness

“…TADs have become of great concern due to the risk for national security on account of their economic significance, zoonotic nature and ever-growing threat of newer TADs in future. Among the TADs having zoonotic manifestations, a number of infectious diseases, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), BSE (Mad cow disease caused by prion), West Nile fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS coronavirus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, Ebola virus, Zika virus and CCHF, to name a few, adversely affecting animal and human health have been in the news in recent times (Malik and Dhama 2015;Munjal et al 2017;Singh et al 2017Singh et al , 2019. The direct and indirect costs due to the FMD outbreak in the UK in 2001 were assessed to be over US$9 billion.…”

“…During 1990s poultry production in East Asia has increased by about 12% per year to double every 5-6 years. Similar to TADs, new human viral diseases have emerged like Ebola, SARS, Zika, CCHF, Nipah and BSE as well as there is the emergence of new antigenic forms or new biotypes of the existing infectious diseases, such as a hypervirulent strain of IBD in poultry in Europe and highly virulent strain of Newcastle disease in the USA (Riemenschneider 2005;Singh et al 2017). Vector-borne pathogens, namely, bluetongue, African horse sickness, Rift Valley fever and West Nile fever, have the potential to spread in epidemic forms.…”

Japanese Encephalitis, Recent Perspectives on Virus Genome, Transmission, Epidemiology, Diagnosis and Prophylactic Interventions

“…A number of mosquito-borne viral diseases like Zika and Ebola have unrestrainedly spread in several parts of the world, even few claimed the status of -International Emergency‖ due to the disease associated losses (Dhama et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2016;Singh et al, 2017;Munjal et al, 2017). In the recent years, Japanese encephalitis has become an overall human health hazard, especially in South-east Asia, Pacific regions (Western) and Australia.…”