Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak
2014/08/29 by Stephen Gire, Stephen K. Gire, Augustine Goba +69 · 1,293 citations
Medicine · #Biology #Ebola virus #Ebolavirus #Ethnology #Gene #Genetics #Genome #Outbreak #Sierra leone #Transmission (telecommunications) #Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research #Viral Infections and Vectors #Virology #Virus #Zoonotic diseases and public health
paper · open access · doi:10.1126/science.1259657
published in Science 345(6202), 1369-1372 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2014/08/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract
In its largest outbreak, Ebola virus disease is spreading through Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. We sequenced 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients in Sierra Leone to ~2000× coverage. We observed a rapid accumulation of interhost and intrahost genetic variation, allowing us to characterize patterns of viral transmission over the initial weeks of the epidemic. This West African variant likely diverged from central African lineages around 2004, crossed from Guinea to Sierra Leone in May 2014, and has exhibited sustained human-to-human transmission subsequently, with no evidence of additional zoonotic sources. Because many of the mutations alter protein sequences and other biologically meaningful targets, they should be monitored for impact on diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies critical to outbreak response.
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