UPDATED* Reporters scramble as NIH trumpets two assaults against Ebola virus

Yesterday was a frantic day for reporters covering medical science – specifically those following the deadly outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa and the global effort to understand and treat it. In Science magazine NIH, the Harvard and MIT-affiliated Broad Institute, and other researchers reported results of genome sequencing about 100 of the virus’s strains gathered from scores of patients to reveal their origin, history and accumulating mutations. Five of the genome study’s authors already have died of the disease while fighting it in Sierra Leone. Second, a team of researchers from NIH and other int’l health agencies plus pharmaceutical companies revealed more details of a hurried-up test on humans of an experimental vaccine.

  The double barreled news got plenty of push – check the large-caliber agencies and their press releases in Grist at the bottom of this post.

  In some cases, reporters combined the news events into one story. Others filed separately, or just did one topic or the other. Things are too hectic for comparative analysis right away but here is a roundup.

    Stories:

• AP – Seth Borenstein: Scientists Dig Into Ebola’s Deadly Genes For Clues ;   about the genotyping, and on the other topic:  US To Begin safety Testing Ebola Vaccine Next Week ; The genotyping news, including its implication of a specific “patient zero” whose funeral in Guinea kickstarted the outbreak by infecting 14 people who handled his body, gets a dramatic feature-style opening. I’d have added the word “more” at the end of the lede to make it clearer. Another possibly too-fussy quibble – whoever wrote the first story’s hed listed above did it just a bit at cross-purposes to the mechanism behind the vaccine of the second story. The team testing inoculation stresses that while a vector adenovirus with its cargo of ebola genes shall, it hopes, trigger immunity, ebola genes in isolation are not deadly. The vaccine cannot conceivably cause the illness. Yet the epidemiology story’s hed calls them deadly genes. Minor, but dissonant.  The prolific Borenstein had a hyper-busy day, by the way, also filing on a peril to coral.
• NYTimes – Donald G. McNeil, Jr: Outbreak in Sierra Leone Is Tied to Single Funeral Where 14 Women Were Infected ; The Times has no story I can find on the week’s announcement of a fast-track vaccine test. But a month it ago covered the basic topic: Rony Caryn Rabin: Ebola Vaccine Possible, but Many Doubts Persist. It also has related vaccine news today: Andrew Pollack: Study Says ZMapp Works Against Ebola (in monkeys).
• Los Angeles Times – Deborah Netburn: The most complete Ebola genome yet: what it can tell us ; Excellent narrative form with clear description of what appears to be a heroic, exceedingly fast job on an enormous task. Moving photos from Ebola wards in Sierra Leone including of some of the medical workers who were killed by the virus. Also at LA Times: Melissa Healy – NIH to launch Ebola vaccine trials in humans;
• Washington Post – Brady Dennis: Sense of urgency heightens over Ebola crisis ; Vaccine, genome sequencing, The vaccine (including recent encouraging results from tests in chimps) plus the epidemics dynamics as revealed by the multi-genome study. Dennis had many strands to weave into one story. Three other staffers get tagline credit: Abby Phillip, Caelinn Hogan, and Lenny Bernstein. The Post also ran separately Abby Ohlheiser – Five co-authors of a new Ebola study died of the virus before their research was published ; The story makes much of the mutations by the virus as an impediment to fighting it. Brady Dennis also wrote a separate on that angle as well, Ebola virus has mutated during course of outbreak;   True, and other outlets also stress the contagion’s evolution. But far as one can tell, the virus is not mutating at a particularly unusual rate for such things – which also ought to be mentioned in news accounts.
• Guardian (UK) Julia Kollewe: GSK to start production of Ebola vaccine as tests on humans begin ;
• Scientific American – Dina Fine Maron: Patient Zero Believed to Be sole Source of Ebola Outbreak; Explains both what happened and why that information is important. It notes that Ebola’s mutation rate is merely middling, as viruses go.
• *UPDATE: See comment for the welcome tip from Lauren Morello at Nature’s Newsblog that led ksjtracker to Nature News – Erika Check Hayden : Ebola virus mutating rapidly as it spreads ; This is high grade writing and richly detailed as well. Hayden was prepared for the story to an unusual extent. Two days earlier Nature published a feature story Hayden wrote that surely immersed her deeply in the state of events: World struggles to stop Ebola ;
• … Could go on but day’s short – with apologies for missing some worthy ones no doubt.

  Grist for the Mill:

• Vaccine Trial: NIH Press Release ; GlaxoSmithKline Press Release ; Related – Immunovaccine Press Release ; Related – World Health Organization Press Release;
• Ebola gene sequencing: NIH Press Release; Broad Institute Press Release ;