Two new viruses have been discovered in Nigeria by a team
of scientists from Nigeria and the United States of
America.
The scientists said the viruses discovered were related to
rabies adding that the new viruses had some level of
similarities to the virus responsible for cases of viral
haemorrhagic fever in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo in 2012.
The team said though the threat of these viruses to the
population had not been confirmed, the discovery was a
breakthrough that would help to diagnose yet-unknown
fever cases in the country.
The Director, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Abuja,
Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi, has also described the discovery
as a major breakthrough for Nigerian scientists.
The team was led by a Professor of Molecular Biology and
Genomics, Dr. Christian Happi. Happi is the Director,
African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious
Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Mowe, Ogun State.
The scientists named the viruses Ekpoma virus-1 (EKV-1)
and Ekpoma virus-2 (EKV-2), after the region in Edo State
where they investigated cases of individuals that had the
virus in them.
The study population consisted of men and women from all
age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds living in and
around Irrua, which is close to Ekpoma.
The discovery was published on Wednesday in an article
titled ‘Discovery of Novel Rhabdoviruses in the Blood of
Healthy Individuals from West Africa” in the PLOS
Neglected Tropical Diseases journal.
The scientists said the discovery was possible through the
use of the “next-generation sequencing,” a high-throughput
method for sequencing DNA and RNA, which has the
potential to transform virus discovery because it does not
depend on culturing the pathogen or a prior knowledge of
the pathogen’s nucleic acid sequence.
A part of the article read, “We used next-generation
sequencing to identify RNA viruses present in the blood of
patients with unexplained fever, as well as apparently
healthy individuals in a peri-urban community in Nigeria.
We found several well-characterised viruses in the blood of
the febrile patients, including HIV-1, hepatitis B and C, as
well as Lassa virus. We also discovered two novel
rhabdoviruses in the blood of two apparently healthy
(afebrile) females, which we named Ekpoma virus-1 and
Ekpoma virus-2.
“Our results suggest that such rhabdovirus infections could
be common, and may not necessarily cause overt disease.
The identification of viral nucleic acid sequences in
apparently healthy individuals highlights the need for a
broader understanding of all viruses infecting humans as
we increase efforts to identify viruses causing human
disease.”
In a telephone interview with our correspondent on
Wednesday, Happi said, “This discovery points to the fact
that the genomics for pathogen discovery platform that we
have set up at Redeemer’s University is rapidly advancing
health Sciences in Africa.”
He further said, “These two new viruses are also related to
rabies, which is a very dangerous disease. The discovery
also shows clearly that there are a lot of potentially
dangerous viruses circulating around that science has not
yet discovered and there is no diagnosis yet. Once we
discovered these new viruses, we went to do proper
diagnosis.
“We have not yet confirmed the threat to the population but
what this means is that there are viruses which could be
causing diseases outbreak in the country that we don’t
know anything about. We could potentially have disease
outbreak in the country due to viruses that we don’t know
anything about.
“It’s important that the ministry of health should work with
us to put in place a surveillance system so that we should
be able to identify the pathogens that are responsible for
some unknown causes of fever. Also, not only we would
know the pathogens responsible for fever cases, but we
should be able to discover new viruses that could be
potential threat to the population.”
Nasidi said the viruses do not pose any immediate threat to
the populace.
He said, “There is no potential threat to the country from
these viruses for now. The federal ministry of health is
giving this discovery serious attention and we commend the
scientists and the group that worked with them. So, our
government should listen to Nigerian scientists, we are now
capable and competing with international counterparts.
Before we didn’t have the capabilities, so this discovery is
very significant for us.
“It means that we are putting in place in the country
capabilities to be able, not only to detect diseases, but also
to discover their causes; that is empowering our research
centres. As I am talking to you, we are working on
establishing our national reference laboratory that would be
based in Abuja.” CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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