Question 1

What can be studied without maximum containment?

Accepted Answer

A good deal: reservoir ecology and field sampling, serological surveys, analysis of existing genome sequences, epidemiological modelling, and work with non-infectious systems such as single viral proteins. Deciding this early avoids designing a project around access that may not materialise within the timeframe.

Question 2

Why are case fatality estimates uncertain?

Accepted Answer

Because the denominator is incomplete. Severe cases reach health facilities and are recorded; mild or asymptomatic infections often are not, so the recorded proportion dying overstates true risk to an unknown degree. Serological surveys after an outbreak help bound this, and estimates should carry the ascertainment issue stated.

Question 3

Does finding virus in an animal establish a reservoir?

Accepted Answer

No. Detection shows exposure or infection at one moment; a reservoir maintains the virus over time without being killed by it. Establishing that requires repeated sampling and evidence of persistent infection, so single-survey detections are better described as evidence of exposure than as reservoir identification.

Question 4

How are field sampling frames designed?

Accepted Answer

With the inference in mind. Convenience sampling near known outbreak sites gives prevalence figures that do not generalise, so the sampling area, season and species selection all need justifying against the population the estimate is meant to describe. Recording effort as well as positives allows a rate rather than a count.

Question 5

Which model systems are used for pathogenesis?

Accepted Answer

Non-human primates reproduce human disease most closely, with rodent-adapted systems used where primates are impractical, alongside cell and organoid systems. Each abstracts differently from human infection, and stating which features the model reproduces and which it does not is expected rather than optional.

Question 6

What ethical approvals does field work need?

Accepted Answer

Typically institutional approval in both home and host country, community consent arrangements, permits for animal sampling and for sample export, and agreements on data and material sharing. These take longer than anticipated, so beginning them early rather than at the point of travel is worth following.

Question 7

How is prior outbreak data best reused?

Accepted Answer

Carefully, and with attention to how it was collected. Case definitions, reporting systems and testing capacity differ between outbreaks and over time within one, so pooling across events without accounting for this can produce trends reflecting surveillance changes rather than the biology being studied.

Microbiology

Microbiology

Research Frontiers in Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Pathogenesis and Epidemiology