Ebola hemorrhagic fever or Ebola virus disease (EVD) is an acute and severe disease with a fatality rate in humans around 50%. ![]() The virus is highly infectious and can enter the body through direct contact of broken skin or mucous membranes with infected blood or body fluids, causing symptoms including fever, vomiting, diarrhea, internal and external bleeding. The first three are responsible for the majority of human infections. ĮBOV belongs to the single-stranded RNA virus family Filoviridae with five distinct strains in the Ebola genus: Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Taï Forest and Reston. In June 2020, when the 2018 outbreak that occurred in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo was declared over by the World Health Organization (WHO), 3470 cases had been reported with 2287 deaths (fatality rate of 66%). Since then, other outbreaks of Ebola have been observed. The most virulent outbreak reported to date was in West Africa in December 2013 and lasted until 2016 with more than 28,000 confirmed or suspected human cases and more than 11,000 human deaths. The Ebola virus (EBOV), discovered in 1976, causes a severe disease and often fatal hemorrhagic fever for which numerous human outbreaks have been reported throughout Africa. This study offers the first insight to the genetics of a wild great ape population before and after an Ebola outbreak using target capture experiments from fecal samples, and presents a list of candidate loci that may have facilitated their survival. However, and despite the low power for an association analysis, we do detect six nominally significant missense mutations in four genes that might be candidate variants associated with an increased chance of survival. Our results indicate no changes in the population genetic diversity before and after the Ebola outbreak, and no significant differences in microbial community composition between survivors and non-survivors. We used a target enrichment approach to capture the sequences of 123 genes previously associated with immunology and Ebola virus resistance and additionally analyzed the gut microbiome which could influence the survival after an infection. ResultsĪssociations with survivorship were evaluated by utilizing DNA obtained from fecal samples from 16 gorilla individuals declared missing after the outbreak (non-survivors) and 15 individuals observed before and after the epidemic (survivors). Here, we explore the immediate genetic impact of the Ebola outbreak in the western lowland gorilla population. The 2004 outbreak at the Odzala-Kokoua National Park (Republic of Congo) alone caused a severe decline in the resident western lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla) population, with a 95% mortality rate. Besides human fatalities, gorillas and chimpanzees have also succumbed to the fatal virus. ![]() Numerous Ebola virus outbreaks have occurred in Equatorial Africa over the past decades.
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