Spillover or endemic? Reconsidering the origins of Ebola virus disease outbreaks by revisiting local accounts in light of new evidence from Guinea
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Correspondence to Professor Melissa Leach; m.leach@ids.ac.uk
Summary box
That the 2021 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Guinea originated in viral resurgence from a survivor infected 5–7 years ago requires local and scientific accounts of past outbreaks to be revisited.
Many past EVD epidemics hitherto considered as independent zoonotic spillovers may have originated from similar flare-ups even after decades, prompting reconsideration of EVD more as an endemic disease over long timescales and wide areas than as a series of discrete epidemics, and accounting for increasing outbreak frequency.