"It's here that submicroscopic viral RNA can safely linger. Often the human hosts have no idea. They'd fallen ill, then appeared to beat the virus. Their blood tested negative. They show no symptoms. But that hidden virus is capable of springing back into action. It can emerge from hiding either sickening the original host or slipping into semen or breast milk and infecting someone new."
"Which viruses have mastered this technique? A number of notorious ones from Zika to measles to highly deadly viruses like Nipah, Marburg and Lassa fever. And the virus that terrified the world in 2014: Ebola. In the decade since, the Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced more than its fair share of Ebola crises with nine outbreaks, including one that is ongoing and more than its fair share of hidden viruses that spring back into action."
""Almost all the outbreaks recently maybe not every single one of them but the vast majority are traced back to a previous outbreak," says Dr. Elizabeth Higgs, who is with the Division of Clinical Research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."
Some viruses can persist in immune-privileged sites such as the eyes and testes, where immune surveillance is limited and viral RNA can remain. Survivors can appear recovered with negative blood tests and no symptoms while viral material lingers and later reactivates. Reactivation can sicken the original host or enable transmission through semen or breast milk. Multiple viruses employ this strategy, including Zika, measles, Nipah, Marburg, Lassa fever and Ebola. Genetic sequencing has shown many recent Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo trace to previously infected humans rather than animal reservoirs.
Read at www.npr.org
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