Ebola virus disease outbreak in the Republic of Guinea 2021: hypotheses of origin

In 2013-2016, a large-scale Ebola virus diseas (EVD) outbreak hit the countries of West Africa for the first time. Thus provoking a health crisis. The most affected countries were Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Republic of Guinea. Since the end of the outbreak in 2016, there have been no new cases until recently. In February 2021, the Republic of Guinea announced about laboratory-confirmed EVD cases in its territory.By April 12, 2021, an Ebola virus disease outbreak in the province of N’Zerekore (Gueke sub-prefecture) of the Republic of Guinea had affected 16 people, 9 of whom had died. The origin of this outbreak is still unknown. This paper considers various hypotheses of its emergence. Within the frames of the study sequencing and analysis of the whole genome sequence of the strain that initiated the epidemic process have been carried out. The most likely cause of this outbreak, according to the results obtained, should be deemed a long-term persistence of the virus in the body of survivors, followed by a relapse of the disease and transmission among contact persons.