Silent but Not Deadly: Muting Gene Quashes Ebola Infection
In fall 1976 the first recorded Ebola outbreak ravaged a small village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). The virus, named for the river valley where it was found, causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever. It spread quickly via contact with blood and contaminated needles killing nearly 90 percent of the 318 villagers it infected. Since then about 2,300 human cases have been reported, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , 85 percent of which were fatal.After identifying a new strain called " Ebola-Reston " during a 1989 outbreak scare in Reston, Va., (and earning a central role in Richard Preston's book, The Hot Zone ) Thomas Geisbert had tried everything to quash the virus, which continues to threaten civilians and medical aid providers in Africa as well as scientists who work in the highest...