Predicting Ebola virus disease risk and the role of African bat birthing

Hranac, C. Reed; Marshall, Jonathan; Monadjem, Ara; Hayman, David T. S.

doi:10.1016/j.epidem.2019.100366

Cited by 27 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…has produced mixed, and sometimes contradictory, findings. NiV, like Ebola, Marburg, Hendra, and some bat coronaviruses, is associated with seasonal spikes in infection that coincide with annual or semiannual synchronous birth pulses (21,(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48). Seasonal periods of NiV shedding were observed in Pteropus lylei in Thailand, and seasonal spikes in NiV (or a related henipavirus) seroprevalence coinciding with pregnancy periods were observed in Eidolon dupreanum in Madagascar (49,50), but not in Pteropus vampyrus or Pteropus hypomelanus in Peninsular Malaysia (25).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans

Epstein

Anthony

Islam

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

148

170

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Nipah virus (NiV) is an emerging bat-borne zoonotic virus that causes near-annual outbreaks of fatal encephalitis in South Asia—one of the most populous regions on Earth. In Bangladesh, infection occurs when people drink date-palm sap contaminated with bat excreta. Outbreaks are sporadic, and the influence of viral dynamics in bats on their temporal and spatial distribution is poorly understood. We analyzed data on host ecology, molecular epidemiology, serological dynamics, and viral genetics to characterize spatiotemporal patterns of NiV dynamics in its wildlife reservoir, Pteropus medius bats, in Bangladesh. We found that NiV transmission occurred throughout the country and throughout the year. Model results indicated that local transmission dynamics were modulated by density-dependent transmission, acquired immunity that is lost over time, and recrudescence. Increased transmission followed multiyear periods of declining seroprevalence due to bat-population turnover and individual loss of humoral immunity. Individual bats had smaller host ranges than other Pteropus species (spp.), although movement data and the discovery of a Malaysia-clade NiV strain in eastern Bangladesh suggest connectivity with bats east of Bangladesh. These data suggest that discrete multiannual local epizootics in bat populations contribute to the sporadic nature of NiV outbreaks in South Asia. At the same time, the broad spatial and temporal extent of NiV transmission, including the recent outbreak in Kerala, India, highlights the continued risk of spillover to humans wherever they may interact with pteropid bats and the importance of limiting opportunities for spillover throughout Pteropus’s range.

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Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans

Epstein

Anthony

Islam

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

148

170

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Another common means of acquiring an Ebola infection is by eating inadequately cooked flesh of infected animals. There are a variety of species that are carriers of the virus that are commonly eaten by the indigenous people; among these are fruit bats, monkeys, antelope, and others (46). Finally, Ebola is spread when healthy individuals come in contract with soiled personal items of an infected individual or contaminated medical waste (47).…”

Section: Ebola Virus: An Unwelcomed Guestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Treatment of ebola and other infectious diseases: melatonin “goes viral”

Reíter

Sharma

2020

Melatonin Res.

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This review summarizes published reports on the utility of melatonin as a treatment for virus-mediated diseases. Of special note are the data related to the role of melatonin in influencing Ebola virus disease. This infection and deadly condition has no effective treatment and the published works documenting the ability of melatonin to attenuate the severity of viral infections generally and Ebola infection specifically are considered. The capacity of melatonin to prevent one of the major complications of an Ebola infection, i.e., the hemorrhagic shock syndrome, which often contributes to the high mortality rate, is noteworthy. Considering the high safety profile of melatonin, the fact that it is easily produced, inexpensive and can be self-administered makes it an attractive potential treatment for Ebola virus pathology.

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“…More broadly, niche maps for filoviral and other zoonotic diseases with wildlife origins rely on incompletely observed human/primate outbreak data for validation 35 . The Ebola virus spillover map used to generate Figure 4-B, for example, was fit to known instances of spillover in people (either directly from the putative reservoir or via intermediate hosts such as apes and duikers) 24 . While cross-validated on subsets of known spillovers and built on independent, underlying ecological data (i.e., fruit bat and non-molossid microbat diversity, bat demographic patterns, and human population density), such models still face fundamental challenges related to potential spatially heterogeneous observation biases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All analysis code will be made available on github (eeg31/detectability), with the exception of data dependencies which can be acquired according to the data policies of their source manuscripts 17–20,24,76,77 .…”

Section: Data Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Syndromic detectability of haemorrhagic fever outbreaks

Glennon

Jephcott

Oti

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Late detection of emerging viral transmission allows outbreaks to spread uncontrolled, the devastating consequences of which are exemplified by recent epidemics of Ebola virus disease. Especially challenging in places with sparse healthcare, limited diagnostic capacity, and public health infrastructure, syndromes with overlapping febrile presentations easily evade early detection. There is a clear need for evidence-based and context-dependent tools to make syndromic surveillance more efficient. Using published data on symptom presentation and incidence of 21 febrile syndromes, we develop a novel algorithm for aetiological identification of case clusters and demonstrate its ability to identify outbreaks of dengue, malaria, typhoid fever, and meningococcal disease based on clinical data from past outbreaks. We then apply the same algorithm to simulated outbreaks to systematically estimate the syndromic detectability of outbreaks of all 21 syndromes. We show that while most rare haemorrhagic fevers are clinically distinct from most endemic fevers in sub-Saharan Africa, VHF detectability is limited even under conditions of perfect syndromic surveillance. Furthermore, even large clusters (20+ cases) of filoviral diseases cannot be routinely distinguished by the clinical criteria present in their case definitions alone; we show that simple syndromic case definitions are insensitive to rare fevers across most of the region. We map the estimated detectability of Ebola virus disease across sub-Saharan Africa, based on geospatially mapped estimates of malaria, dengue, and other fevers with overlapping syndromes. We demonstrate "hidden hotspots" where Ebola virus is likely to spill over from wildlife and also transmit undetected for many cases. Such places may represent both the locations of past unobserved outbreaks and potential future origins for larger epidemics. Finally, we consider the implications of these results for improved locally relevant syndromic surveillance and the consequences of syndemics and under-resourced health infrastructure for infectious disease emergence.

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Predicting Ebola virus disease risk and the role of African bat birthing

Cited by 27 publications

References 41 publications

Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans

Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans

Treatment of ebola and other infectious diseases: melatonin “goes viral”

Syndromic detectability of haemorrhagic fever outbreaks

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