Marburg and Ebola Virus Hemorrhagic Fevers

Members of the filovirus genera, Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus, cause lethal hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates, with case-fatality rates of up to 90%. Small filovirus outbreaks in humans have occurred sporadically, primarily in Central Africa, for more than 50 years; however, an unprecedented epidemic of Zaire ebolavirus involving more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths occurred in West Africa in 2013-16. Currently, there are no approved vaccines or antivirals against filoviruses, although a vesicular stomatitis virus-based vaccine expressing the Zaire ebolavirus glycoprotein showed remarkable success in a ring-vaccination cluster-randomized trial in Guinea during the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic.