Focus on Ebola virus research.

In 2014, Ebola virus disease (EVD) emerged as a major international public health issue that garnered worldwide attention. The largest recorded Ebola virus outbreak in history began in Guinea in December 2013 and has spread throughout the neighboring nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia, with additional travel-related cases in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Spain, and the United States. At the time of writing, the World Health Organization has reported that there have been 17,290 EVD cases (10,825 lab confirmed) from this outbreak resulting in 6,128 deaths. In addition, an unrelated EVD outbreak was reported in August in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in 66 cases (38 lab confirmed) and 49 deaths. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for EVD, although there are several investigational products that are being accelerated into clinical trials through the efforts of multiple nations and pharmaceutical companies. This special issue of Viral Immunology is devoted entirely to Ebola virus research, and includes articles on human cases of EVD, nonhuman primate disease models, molecular mechanisms of virus immune evasion, cellular responses to infection, and novel vaccines.