EMERGENCE OF FILOVIRIDAE IN THE NEW WORLD

January, 2018-present

It goes without saying that infection by Filoviridae is without a doubt the most lethal of all viral hemorrhagic fevers. The most recent outbreak in West Africa from 2013 to 2015 with over 11,000 deaths and the subsequent extraordinarily severe social economic consequences would bear witness to that. To date all emergence of both of Ebola virus and Marburg virus have occurred only in the continent of Equatorial Africa. The genomic fragments of Ebola Zaire in several species of bat is intriguing. Ebola is a -sense RNA virus, so how could these fragments (both + sense and -sense) have been integrated into bat DNA? 
The purpose of this initial project is towards the investigation for further field research into the possible emergence of Filoviridae in North and South America.