What Ebola and Marburg are teaching us about the next pandemic

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The Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak has highlighted the failure of current diagnostic tools to detect the pathogen effectively.
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Existing diagnostic assays, primarily designed for Zaire ebolavirus, failed to identify Bundibugyo ebolavirus, allowing undetected transmission.
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The simultaneous circulation of multiple pathogens, such as Marburg virus amid the Ebola outbreak, underscores the need for improved diagnostic systems.
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Current diagnostic approaches are often reactive and pathogen-specific, failing to account for the complexity of emerging infectious diseases.
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A shift towards pathogen-agnostic diagnostic systems is necessary to effectively identify and respond to a broader range of infectious threats.

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