Spillover of ebolaviruses into people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo prior to the 2018 Ebola virus disease outb
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One Health Outlook
RESEARCH
Open Access
Spillover of ebolaviruses into people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo prior to the 2018 Ebola virus disease outbreak Tracey Goldstein1*, Manjunatha N. Belaganahalli1, Eddy K. Syaluha2, Jean-Paul K. Lukusa2, Denise J. Greig1, Simon J. Anthony3,4, Alexandre Tremeau-Bravard1, Riddhi Thakkar3, Adrian Caciula3, Nischay Mishra3, W. Ian Lipkin3, Jasjeet K. Dhanota1, Brett R. Smith1, Victoria M. Ontiveros1, Nistara Randhawa1, Michael Cranfield1,2, Christine K. Johnson1, Kirsten V. Gilardi1,2 and Jonna A. K. Mazet1
Abstract Background: The second largest Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of Congo in July 2018 in North Kivu Province. Data suggest the outbreak is not epidemiologically linked to the 2018 outbreak in Equateur Province, and that independent introduction of Ebola virus (EBOV) into humans occurred. We tested for antibodies to ebolaviruses in febrile patients seeking care in North Kivu Province prior to the EVD outbreak. Methods: Patients were enrolled between May 2017 and April 2018, before the declared start of the outbreak in eastern DRC. Questionnaires were administered to collect demographic and behavioural information to identify risk factors for exposure. Biological samples were evaluated for ebolavirus nucleic acid, and for antibodies to ebolaviruses. Prevalence of exposure was calculated, and demographic factors evaluated for associations with ebolavirus serostatus. Results: Samples were collected and tested from 272 people seeking care in the Rutshuru Health Zone in North Kivu Province. All patients were negative for filoviruses by PCR. Intial screening by indirect ELISA found that 30 people were reactive to EBOV-rGP. Results were supported by detection of ebolavirus reactive linear peptides using the Serochip platform. Differential screening of all reactive serum samples against the rGP of all six ebolaviruses and Marburg virus (MARV) showed that 29 people exhibited the strongest reactivity to EBOV and one to Bombali virus (BOMV), and western blotting confirmed results. Titers ranged from 1:100 to 1:12,800. Although both sexes and all ages tested positive for antibodies, women were significantly more likely to be positive and the majority of positives were in February 2018. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 One Health Institute & Karen C Drayer Wildlife Health Center, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis, California, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative C
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