Ebola viral protein 35 and RNAScience Photo Library -- Alamy Stock Photo
New research suggests that combining genomic and epidemiologic approaches can improve public health response to serious emerging infectious diseases, such as Ebola.
Following the tenth Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in August 2018, the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) acquired the capacity for genomic sequencing and began collecting and sequencing samples. An end-to-end genomic surveillance system, including linkage of results to frontline public health workers, was integrated into the country’s epidemiological response.
Eddy Kinganda-Lusamaki and colleagues from the INRB, Senegal, France and the United States analyzed 744 genomes, representing nearly 24% of confirmed infections in the country during the outbreak, publishing their findings in Nature Medicine.
While previous Ebola outbreaks were bigger than the Nord Kivu region outbreak studied by the team, the sequencing was mainly done in the West. This study is the first in which the majority of the work is done within the DRC.
The work provides important context for frontline health workers to acquire specific, actionable information in real time. The genomic surveillance data helped critical decisions such as who received the limited doses of Ebola vaccine by facilitating the identification of super spreading factors — a pastor’s funeral and an infected motorcycle taxi driver — leading to the inclusion of the clergy and couriers as priority groups for vaccination. It also shows the value of building capacity locally rather than depending on research done elsewhere.
The approach may also provide much-needed support for understanding and responding to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the DRC and other countries.
