Ok, so the CDC has confirmed..and other things!

[Ed Rybicki]

> From:          bhjelle at unm.edu
> Subject:       Re: Ok, so the CDC has confirmed..and other things!

> In article <3p3s3u$45i at decaxp.harvard.edu>,
> Lisa Ronthal <lronthal at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >: analyzing blood samples from the current outbreak in Zairesaid this virus 
> >: is *extremely similar* to the Ebola Zaire strain that ravaged Yambuku 19 
> >: years ago.  'You have a virus that over a 20 year period of time has 
> >: remained relatively intact' said CDC spokesman Bob Howard.    That in 
> >: itself is puzzling, because viruses such as Ebola are highly unstable and 
> >: prone to mutate.  There is no explanation yet for the similarity between 
...
> Uh-oh, can see where this is going. How do we know that "viruses
> like Ebola are highly unstable..."? No basis! If, as is widely
> suspected, Ebola lives in some animal host in nature, it is
> *expected* that it is adapted well for that host and unlikely
> to change much over 20 years. This is seen with many other
> viruses that are commonly "accepted" to be unstable.
> 
> This alleged instability of RNA viruses is one of the
> most misunderstood phenomena, even among some virologists.

Seconded!!!  Because things mutate fast in zoonotic infections (such 
as Ebola in humans), does NOT mean they mutate fast in their natural 
reservoir (whatever that is in the case of Ebola).  The stability of 
it could simply be due to there being a "quasispecies" out there in 
the reservoir, the most stable form of which IN THE RESERVOIR happens 
to be similar to the one causing the outbreaks.

 ______________________________________________________
 |     Ed Rybicki, PhD      |  ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za   |
 |    Dept Microbiology     | University of Cape Town |
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