Marburg and Ebola Viruses – Marking 50 Years Since Their Discovery

In 1967, a mysterious infectious disease was described in patients at the University Hospital in Marburg, Germany. Most patients had come into contact with a shipment of African green monkeys from Uganda. Additional patients were noted in Frankfurt, Germany and Belgrade, now Serbia. The etiological agent was identified as a virus and named after the city of Marburg – Marburg virus. Nine years later, a similar clinical infectious syndrome was described in patients in rural areas in southern Sudan (now South Sudan) and northern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC). The pathogen was identified as a virus similar to Marburg virus and named Ebola virus after a river in the northern DRC. Today we have a family of viruses, Filoviridae, comprising the genera Marburgvirus (single species), Ebolavirus (five species), and Cuevavirus (single species; no virus isolates) and a few unclassified sequences from bats. Until the mid-‘90s, filoviruses were neglected tropical pathogens, classified as high-containment viruses and of little research, infectious disease, and public health interest. This situation changed with the Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC in 1995 and the classification as biothreat pathogens around the millennium switch. Research into filoviruses increased, mainly funded by governments concerned about bioterrorism seeking countermeasures such as diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies. Despite several smaller outbreaks with passing interest from regional public health groups, the interest in filoviruses from a public health perspective did not really change until recently when faced with an unprecedented outbreak in West Africa (2013–2016) that caused approximately 30,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths. This devastating public health disaster finally also awakened the interest of the pharmaceutical industry in countermeasure development. Today, we have a vibrant research community with interest in all aspects of filoviruses as our knowledge had and still has tremendous gaps caused by the past lack of interest, lack of funding, limited involvement of scientific disciplines, and biocontainment constraints. Excitingly, efforts over the years have resulted in the implementation of rapid mobile diagnostics including bed-side tests, improved case patient management and multiple experimental therapeutic and vaccines candidates in clinical trials. The change in research activities and achievements over this time is nicely reflected by the increasing interest in attending the International Filovirus Symposium. This young meeting series was launched in 2000 in Marburg, Germany and founded based on the International Colloquium on Ebola Virus Research held in Antwerp in 1996. Symposia followed in Bethesda, USA (2003); Winnipeg, Canada (2006); Libreville, Gabon (2008); Tokyo, Japan (2010); Galveston, USA (2014); Washington, USA (2015), Antwerp; Belgium (2016), and Marburg, Germany (2017). The last two meetings were dedicated to the 40th and 50th Anniversary of Ebola virus and Marburg virus, respectively. Several of these meetings have been complemented by a Supplement Issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, a series that has been highly successful with articles being well cited in the fields of filoviruses, infectious diseases, and public health. As the current organizers of the meeting, we hope to continue in the short tradition of holding the International Filovirus Symposium every three years unless circumstances call for ad hoc meetings in shorter intervals, such as during the West African outbreak. The next symposium is scheduled for 2020 in La Jolla, USA and we hope to welcome the filovirus community to this future event.

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