Doubly nonlinear parabolic equations involving variable exponents

The Magazine Wharf area, Freetown, Sierra Leone was a focus of ongoing Ebola virus transmission from late June 2015. Viral genomes linked to this area contain a series of 13 T to C substitutions in a 150 base pair intergenic region downstream of viral protein 40 open reading frame, similar to the Ebolavirus/H.sapienswt/ SLE/2014/Makona-J0169 strain (J0169) detected in the same town in November 2014. This suggests that recently circulating viruses from Freetown descend from a J0169-like virus

Virus genomes reveal factors that spread and sustained the Ebola epidemic

The 2013-2016 West African epidemic caused by the Ebola virus was of unprecedented magnitude, duration and impact. Here we reconstruct the dispersal, proliferation and decline of Ebola virus throughout the region by analysing 1,610 Ebola virus genomes, which represent over 5% of the known cases. We test the association of geography, climate and demography with viral movement among administrative regions, inferring a classic 'gravity' model, with intense dispersal between larger and closer populations. Despite attenuation of international dispersal after border closures, cross-border transmission had already sown the seeds for an international epidemic, rendering these measures ineffective at curbing the epidemic. We address why the epidemic did not spread into neighbouring countries, showing that these countries were susceptible to substantial outbreaks but at lower risk of introductions. Finally, we reveal that this large epidemic was a heterogeneous and spatially dissociated collection of transmission clusters of varying size, duration and connectivity. These insights will help to inform interventions in future epidemics