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Published on: September 27, 2014
Molecular Evidence of Sexual Transmission of Ebola Virus
Suzanne E Mate1, Jeffrey R Kugelman, Tolbert G Nyenswah
1From the Center for Genome Sciences (S.E.M., J.R.K., J.T.L., M.R.W., K.P., M.S.-L., G.P.) and Diagnostic Systems Division (R.J.S.), U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and the Division of Clinical Research, Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH) (J.P., L.E.H., J.H.K.) - all in Frederick, MD; the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (T.G.N., S.B.S., M.B., F.N.K.) and the World Health Organization (WHO) (G.J.D.-W., R.M.), Monrovia, and the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research, Charlesville (L.F., F.T., F.B.) - all in Liberia; WHO, Geneva (T.C.-L., A.G., P.F.); the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta (A.C., B.W.H., U.S., D.J.B., A.S.L., D.E.W., T.L., S.T.N., K.M.D.C.); Illumina, San Diego, CA (G.P.S., S.M.G.); WHO, New Delhi, India (S.A.S); Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Hamilton, MT (E.W., N.D., V.J.M., D.S.); Naval Medical Research Unit 3, Cairo (J.W.D.); and the Foundation Mérieux, Washington, DC (J.F.).
Abstract:
A suspected case of sexual transmission from a male survivor of Ebola virus disease (EVD) to his female partner (the patient in this report) occurred in Liberia in March 2015. Ebola virus (EBOV) genomes assembled from blood samples from the patient and a semen sample from the survivor were consistent with direct transmission. The genomes shared three substitutions that were absent from all other Western African EBOV sequences and that were distinct from the last documented transmission chain in Liberia before this case. Combined with epidemiologic data, the genomic analysis provides evidence of sexual transmission of EBOV and evidence of the persistence of infective EBOV in semen for 179 days or more after the onset of EVD. (Funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and others.).
