The laboratory-synthesized virus killed hamsters, researchers said.
Scientists in China have developed a virus using parts of the deadly Ebola to study the disease and its symptoms. A study describing the experiment at Hebei Medical University was published in Science directly. Researchers noted in the study that they injected a group of hamsters with the deadly virus and they died within three days. The hamsters developed “severe systemic diseases similar to those observed in human Ebola patients, including multi-organ failure,” they further said in the study.
For the study, the team of Chinese researchers used a contagious livestock disease and added a protein found in Ebola, which allows the virus to infect cells and spread through the human body.
After the injection, some hamsters developed discharges in their eyeballs, which affected their vision and covered the surface of the eyeballs.
“It is a sign that three-week-old Syrian hamsters infected with the virus have the potential to play a role in the study of optic nerve disorders caused by EVD.” researchers said.
Amid concerns about the alleged laboratory leak of the coronavirus that caused the latest pandemic, the researchers said their goal was to find the right animal models that can safely mimic Ebola symptoms in a laboratory setting.
A virus like Ebola requires extremely safe facilities that meet Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4). Most laboratories around the world are BSL-2.
As a solution, Chinese scientists used another virus, the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which they developed to transmit a part of the Ebola virus – called glycoprotein (GP) – that plays a crucial role in helping the virus spread to invade and infect the cells of his body. host.
The test subjects included five female and five male hamsters.
When they collected the organs of the dead animal, they found that the virus had accumulated in the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, stomach, intestines and brain tissue.
The researchers concluded that the study was a success, noting that the experiment provided a rapid preclinical evaluation of medical countermeasures against Ebola under BLS-2 conditions, and concluded that the study was a success.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the last time a major Ebola infection was reported worldwide was between 2014 and 2016 in several West African countries.
