Write An Essay On Ebola Virus

How can we better treat this viral disease to stop it now and to prevent it in the future?

The extreme virulence of Ebola can be attributed to the numerous immunoevasion mechanisms it employs: an early inhibition of innate immunity started by the downregulation of Type I interferon, viral epitope masking, and viral subversion of the new host’s adaptive humoural immunity by expressing copious amounts of secreted GPs, a truncated form of the viral glycoprotein (Wong et al., 2014). Suppressing these specific and non-specific host antiviral responses results in unrestricted viral replication and dissemination throughout the host, causing death typically within 5-10 days after the appearance of symptoms. Understanding the short- and long-term immune responses crucial for host protection and survival holds implications for the design of future vaccines and therapeutics.

However, little is currently known about human antibody targets for Zaire ebolaviruses and about whether the observed ongoing genetic drift will affect their roles as immunogenic targets. The goal of recent research efforts is to produce more effective vaccines, those that produce copious amounts of potent virus-inactivating antibodies and a persistent long-term broad-spectrum immunity to the current strain of species Zaire ebolavirus. Ideally, this immunity would extend to other ebolaviruses. To help achieve this goal, we need to be able to better predict viral epitopes to use as vaccine materials that will result in the production of desirable human immune