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. 2016 Nov 15;63(10):1353-1356.
doi: 10.1093/cid/ciw601. Epub 2016 Sep 1.

Resurgence of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea Linked to a Survivor With Virus Persistence in Seminal Fluid for More Than 500 Days

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Resurgence of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea Linked to a Survivor With Virus Persistence in Seminal Fluid for More Than 500 Days

Boubacar Diallo et al. Clin Infect Dis. .

Abstract

We report on an Ebola virus disease (EVD) survivor who showed Ebola virus in seminal fluid 531 days after onset of disease. The persisting virus was sexually transmitted in February 2016, about 470 days after onset of symptoms, and caused a new cluster of EVD in Guinea and Liberia.

Keywords: Ebola virus; Ebola virus persistence; real-time sequencing; seminal fluid; sexual transmission.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Chains of transmission within the new Ebola virus disease cluster (A) and maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis of the sequences from the new EVD cluster in historical and geographical context (B). A, The chart depicts all patients involved in the cluster and the likely chains of transmission as revealed by epidemiological investigation and virus sequencing. The timeline of events is shown on top. The blue circle depicts the 3 additional Liberian cases, which originated from case 6. B, The new sequences were aligned with 1066 historical Ebola virus genome sequences and a maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was estimated under the general time reversible + Gamma model using RAxML [4]. Only the relevant part of the tree including the new sequences is shown. Abbreviations: +, positive Ebola virus reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction; Ct, cycle threshold; EBOV, Ebola virus; ETU, Ebola treatment unit; RT-PCR, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction.

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