Ebola 2014 Is Mutating As Fast As Seasonal Flu

Zero Hedge

Yesterday we reported that according to Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease – one of the top authorities in the world on Ebola – and who is on the front lines fighting Ebola disease in Liberia, there is something different about the current Ebola outbreak in that not only does it spread more easily than it did before, but the viral loads in Ebola patients are much higher than they are used to seeing. “I have a field team in Monrovia. They are running [tests]. They are telling me that viral loads are coming up very quickly and really high, higher than they are used to seeing…. It may be that the virus burns hotter and quicker.”

That is one observation on how different the current Ebola outbreak may be from the traditional fare. Another one comes courtesy ofOperon Labs, which as cited in detail below, notes that “the current Ebola 2014 virus is mutating at a similar rate to seasonal flu (Influenza A).  This means the current Ebola outbreak has a very high intrinsic rate of viral mutation.  The bottom line is that the Ebola virus is changing rapidly, and in the intermediate to long term (3 months to 24 months), Ebola has the potential to evolve.“

The question is evolve into what?

Submitted on Behalf of Operon Labs, Contributor to Spatiotemporal Modelling Project

Ebola 2014 is Mutating as Fast as Seasonal Flu

Background:

The current Ebola 2014 virus is mutating at a similar rate to seasonal flu (Influenza A).  This means the current Ebola outbreak has a very high intrinsic rate of viral mutation.  The bottom line is that the Ebola virus is changing rapidly, and in the intermediate to long term (3 months to 24 months), Ebola has the potential to evolve.  

We cannot predict exactly what the Ebola virus will look like in 24 months.  There is an inherent stochastic randomness to viral evolution which makes predictions on future viral strains difficult, if not impossible.  One basic tenet we can rely on is this: Viruses tend to maximize their infectivity (basic reproduction number) within their biological constraints (Nowak, 2006).  

These evolutionary constraints can be extremely complex, and can include trade-offs between virulence and infectivity, conditions of superinfection, host population dynamics, and even outbreak control measures.

One of the few statements we can make with confidence that the Ebola genome is changing at a specific rate, which is explained below.

Ebola Mutation Rate:

Analysis of the available research suggests that the Ebola 2014 virus is currently mutating at a rate 200% to 300% higher than historically observed (Gire, 2014).  

Ebola Genome Substitution Rates (Gire, 2014)

Furthermore, the Ebola-2014 virus’s mutation rate of 2.0 x 10⁻³ subs/site/year is nearly identical to Influenza A’s mutation rate of 1.8 x 10⁻³ subs/site/year (Jenkins, 2002).  This means Ebola 2014 is mutating as fast as seasonal flu.

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