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Challenge of Liquid Stressed Protective Materials and Environmental Persistence of Ebola Virus.

ABSTRACT: After the largest Ebola virus outbreak in history, experts have attempted to answer how the Zaire ebolavirus species emerged in West Africa and caused chains of human-to-human transmission. The widespread and untimely infection of Health Care Workers (HCW) in the affected countries accelerated spread of the virus within the community. Among the reasons attributed to this trend, it must be considered that HCW were exposed to the virus in their occupational environment. The contribution of environmental conditions to the spread of Ebola in West Africa was examined by investigating the effect of temperature/humidity on the virus's environmental persistence and by modeling if saturation (liquid stress) allows for penetration of Ebola virus through personal protective equipment (PPE). Ebola-Makona virus persisted on PPE and materials found in outbreak settings for less than 72?hours at 27?°C and 80% relative humidity (RH). A difference in virus penetration was observed between dry (5%, 1/21 tests) and saturated (33%, 7/21 tests) samples of PPE. Infectious virus particles penetrated through saturated coupons of Tyvek Micro Clean, Tychem QC, whole surgical masks and N95 respirators. These findings suggest inclusion of saturation or similar liquid stress simulation in protective equipment testing standards.

SUBMITTER: Nikiforuk AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5491502 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Challenge of Liquid Stressed Protective Materials and Environmental Persistence of Ebola Virus.

Nikiforuk Aidan M AM Cutts Todd A TA Theriault Steven S SS Cook Bradley W M BWM

Scientific reports 20170629 1

After the largest Ebola virus outbreak in history, experts have attempted to answer how the Zaire ebolavirus species emerged in West Africa and caused chains of human-to-human transmission. The widespread and untimely infection of Health Care Workers (HCW) in the affected countries accelerated spread of the virus within the community. Among the reasons attributed to this trend, it must be considered that HCW were exposed to the virus in their occupational environment. The contribution of environ ...[more]

PMID: 28663587

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Project description:The recent Ebola virus (EBOV) epidemic in West Africa demonstrates the potential for a significant public health burden caused by filoviral infections. No vaccine or antiviral is currently FDA approved. To expand the vaccine options potentially available, we assessed protection conferred by an EBOV vaccine composed of vesicular stomatitis virus pseudovirions that lack native G glycoprotein (VSV?G) and bear EBOV glycoprotein (GP). These pseudovirions mediate a single round of infection. Both single-dose and prime/boost vaccination regimens protected mice against lethal challenge with mouse-adapted Ebola virus (ma-EBOV) in a dose-dependent manner. The prime/boost regimen provided significantly better protection than a single dose. As N-linked glycans are thought to shield conserved regions of the EBOV GP receptor-binding domain (RBD), thereby blocking epitopes within the RBD, we also tested whether VSV?G bearing EBOV GPs that lack GP1 N-linked glycans provided effective immunity against challenge with ma-EBOV or a more distantly related virus, Sudan virus. Using a prime/boost strategy, high doses of GP/VSV?G partially or fully denuded of N-linked glycans on GP1 protected mice against ma-EBOV challenge, but these mutants were no more effective than wild-type (WT) GP/VSV?G and did not provide cross protection against Sudan virus. As reported for other EBOV vaccine platforms, the protection conferred correlated with the quantity of EBOV GP-specific Ig produced but not with the production of neutralizing antibodies. Our results show that EBOV GP/VSV?G pseudovirions serve as a successful vaccination platform in a rodent model of Ebola virus disease and that GP1 N-glycan loss does not influence immunogenicity or vaccination success.IMPORTANCE The West African Ebola virus epidemic was the largest to date, with more than 28,000 people infected. No FDA-approved vaccines are yet available, but in a trial vaccination strategy in West Africa, recombinant, infectious VSV encoding the Ebola virus glycoprotein effectively prevented virus-associated disease. VSV?G pseudovirion vaccines may prove as efficacious and have better safety, but they have not been tested to date. Thus, we tested the efficacy of VSV?G pseudovirions bearing Ebola virus glycoprotein as a vaccine platform. We found that wild-type Ebola virus glycoprotein, in the context of this platform, provides robust protection of EBOV-challenged mice. Further, we found that removal of the heavy glycan shield surrounding conserved regions of the glycoprotein does not enhance vaccine efficacy.

Project description:Ebola virus has been detected in the semen of men after their recovery from Ebola virus disease (EVD). We report the presence of Ebola virus RNA in semen in a cohort of survivors of EVD in Sierra Leone.We enrolled a convenience sample of 220 adult male survivors of EVD in Sierra Leone, at various times after discharge from an Ebola treatment unit (ETU), in two phases (100 participants were in phase 1, and 120 in phase 2). Semen specimens obtained at baseline were tested by means of a quantitative reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) assay with the use of the target sequences of NP and VP40 (in phase 1) or NP and GP (in phase 2). This study did not evaluate directly the risk of sexual transmission of EVD.Of 210 participants who provided an initial semen specimen for analysis, 57 (27%) had positive results on quantitative RT-PCR. Ebola virus RNA was detected in the semen of all 7 men with a specimen obtained within 3 months after ETU discharge, in 26 of 42 (62%) with a specimen obtained at 4 to 6 months, in 15 of 60 (25%) with a specimen obtained at 7 to 9 months, in 4 of 26 (15%) with a specimen obtained at 10 to 12 months, in 4 of 38 (11%) with a specimen obtained at 13 to 15 months, in 1 of 25 (4%) with a specimen obtained at 16 to 18 months, and in no men with a specimen obtained at 19 months or later. Among the 46 participants with a positive result in phase 1, the median baseline cycle-threshold values (higher values indicate lower RNA values) for the NP and VP40 targets were lower within 3 months after ETU discharge (32.4 and 31.3, respectively; in 7 men) than at 4 to 6 months (34.3 and 33.1; in 25), at 7 to 9 months (37.4 and 36.6; in 13), and at 10 to 12 months (37.7 and 36.9; in 1). In phase 2, a total of 11 participants had positive results for NP and GP targets (samples obtained at 4.1 to 15.7 months after ETU discharge); cycle-threshold values ranged from 32.7 to 38.0 for NP and from 31.1 to 37.7 for GP.These data showed the long-term presence of Ebola virus RNA in semen and declining persistence with increasing time after ETU discharge. (Funded by the World Health Organization and others.).

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Challenge of Liquid Stressed Protective Materials and Environmental Persistence of Ebola Virus.

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Challenge of Liquid Stressed Protective Materials and Environmental Persistence of Ebola Virus.

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