Ebola RNA Found Hiding in Health-Care Worker’s Lungs

A case study reports evidence of viral replication lingering in the respiratory tract of an infected person, even after the person’s blood was Ebola free.

Written byBob Grant

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WIKIMEDIA, HELLERHOFFEbola virus may linger and continue to replicate in the lungs of patients recovering from infection, even after viral RNA is no longer detectable in their bloodstreams, according to a case study published today (January 5) in PLOS Pathogens.

“Previous epidemics, such as the 1996 Ebola epidemic, were associated with organ failure, including lung failure, but no direct studies in humans had showed evidence of Ebola virus replication in the lungs of patients,” coauthor Giuseppe Ippolito of the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome told International Business Times UK. “We wanted to better understand infection and viral replication patterns in different parts of the body.”

Ippolito and his colleagues monitored the Ebola-infected patient, who was moved from West Africa to a hospital in Italy in 2015, over the course of their infection. They found viral RNA and other markers of viral replication in the patient’s lungs five days after such markers were no longer detectable in the blood.

The study indicates ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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