Ebola outbreak: Five co-authors of latest study killed by virus before research was published
Heather Saul
IndependentUK
Saturday 30 August 2014
Five co-authors of the latest study on Ebola were killed by the virus before their research was published, highlighting the huge risks undertaken by those working to combat its spread.
The study, published on Thursday, discovered the virus has mutated many times during the outbreak in West Africa, making establishing a treatment more difficult.
Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi, Alice Kovoma, Mohamed Fullah and Sheik Umar Khan worked with lead researchers at Harvard University to examine the current outbreak.
Science Mag said all five were experienced members of the Kenema Government Hospital’s (KGH) Lassa fever team. Lassa fever infections have similar symptoms to Ebola.
Their work sequenced the virus genomes from 78 patients and traced the outbreak in Sierra Leone to a funeral of a healer, which a pregnant Kenema Government Hospital Ebola patient and other women who were also infected had attended.
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