Филовирустар: қауіпті вирустар отбасысы

Family of viruses in the order Mononegavirales

Filoviridae (,/f//aɪ//l//oʊ/'/v//ɪr//ɪ//d//iː/) is a family of single stranded negative sense RNA viruses in the order Mononegavirales. Two members of the family that are commonly known are Ebola virus and Marburg virus. Both viruses, and some of their lesser known relatives, cause severe disease in humans and nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fevers. All filoviruses are classified by the US as select agents, by the World Health Organization as Risk Group 4 Pathogens (requiring Biosafety Level 4 equivalent containment), by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as Category A Priority Pathogens, and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as Category A Bioterrorism Agents, and are listed as Biological Agents for Export Control by the Australia Group.

Filoviruses have a history that dates back several tens of million of years. Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) that appear to be derived from filovirus like viruses have been identified in the genomes of bats, rodents, shrews, tenrecs, tarsiers, and marsupials. Although most filovirus like EVEs appear to be pseudogenes, evolutionary analyses suggest that orthologs isolated from several species of the bat genus Myotis have been maintained by selection.

There are presently very limited vaccines for known filovirus. An effective vaccine against EBOV, developed in Canada, was approved for use in 2019 in the US and Europe. Similarly, efforts to develop a vaccine against Marburg virus are under way.

There has been a pressing concern that a very slight genetic mutation to a filovirus such as EBOV could result in a change in transmission system from direct body fluid transmission to airborne transmission, as was seen in Reston virus (another member of genus Ebolavirus) between infected macaques. A similar change in the current circulating strains of EBOV could greatly increase the infection and disease rates caused by EBOV. However, there is no record of any Ebola strain ever having made this transition in humans. The Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center considers the risk of a mutated Ebola virus strain with aerosol transmission capability emerging in the future as a serious threat to national security and has collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to design methods to detect EBOV aerosols.