Ebola virus and advances in studies on drugs used against it / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Ebola virus (EBOV) is a highly lethal virus leading to rapidly fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans and other vertebrates, whose mortality rate could be 90%. Up to now, there is still no effective anti-virus drug or vaccine. Because of severe public health hazard, EBOV has been listed in the most dangerous viruses to humans by WHO. Due to the outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) in Africa in 2014, the correlation research on EBOV has become the hot topic in virology. The general characteristics, structure composition, life cycle of virus, pathogenesis generalization, clinical manifestation of EHF were described in this review. The recent advances about the antiviral targets and drugs were also summarized, as well as prospect on the application of Chinese materia medica in anti-EBOV. In a word, the understanding of EBOV and drug development could be promoted by this review.