Seth Judson, MD

Identifying outbreak origins & spillover

Ebolavirus Emergence

Ebolaviruses are sporadically transmitted from their natural reservoir hosts to humans and other wildlife. Understanding how these spillover events occur and identifying areas at risk may help us mitigate outbreaks and understand where these pathogens circulate in nature.

From studying and modeling ebolavirus spillover events, we found that spillover events of different ebolaviruses occur under differing ecological conditions.

While it was previously thought that most Ebola disease outbreaks were caused by spillover from wildlife, we also identified multiple outbreaks that likely emerged from resurgence of human-to-human transmission.

Judson SD, Fischer R, Judson A, Munster VJ (2016). Ecological Contexts of Index Cases and Spillover Events of Different Ebolaviruses. PLoS Pathog 12(8): e1005780. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1005780

Judson, SD & Munster, VJ, The Multiple Origins of Ebola Disease Outbreaks, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2023;, jiad352, doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiad352

Evaluating modes of transmission

EBOLAVIRUS TRANSMISSION

During the beginning of the 2014 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, little was known about Ebola virus transmission between people. We examined current knowledge about Ebola virus transmission and what kinds of experiments could improve our understanding. One way of improving our understanding is designing experiments to test the biological phenomena behind Ebola virus transmission. Therefore, we tested the stability of Ebola virus on different surfaces, fluids, and within aerosols in simulated outbreak conditions.

Judson, S., Prescott, J., & Munster, V. (2015). Understanding Ebola Virus Transmission. Viruses, 7(2), 511-521.

Fischer R*, Judson S*, Miazgowicz K, Bushmaker T, Prescott J, Munster VJ. Ebola virus stability on surfaces and in fluids in simulated outbreak environments. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 Jul. doi: 10.3201/edi2107.150253   *These authors contributed equally to this article

Fischer RJ, Bushmaker T, Judson S, Munster VJ. Comparison of the Aerosol Stability of 2 Strains of Zaire ebolavirus from the 1976 and 2013 Outbreaks. 2016. J Infect Dis.

Fischer RJ, Judson S, Miazgowicz K, Bushmaker T, Munster VJ. Ebola virus persistence in semen ex vivo. Emerg Infect Dis. 2016 Feb. doi: 10.3201/edi2202.151278

Prescott J, Bushmaker T, Fischer R, Miazgowicz K, Judson S, Munster VJ (2015). Postmortem stability of Ebola virus. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 May. 

Nosocomial transmission of high-consequence pathogens

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the devastating potential for hospital-acquired or nosocomial transmission of emerging viruses. Prior to the pandemic, we had investigated which viruses were high-risk to healthcare workers and in what settings are transmission events may occur. Additionally, early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed decontamination of personal protective equipment (PPE) in order to protect healthcare workers.

Judson, S.D.; Munster, V.J. (2019). Nosocomial Transmission of Emerging Viruses via Aerosol-Generating Medical Procedures. Viruses. 11(10), 940. https://doi.org/10.3390/v11100940

Judson, S., & Munster, V. (2020). A Framework for Nosocomial Transmission of Emerging Coronaviruses. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 1-8. doi:10.1017/ice.2020.296

Fischer R.J., Morris D.H., van Doremalen N., Sarchette S., Matson M.J., Bushmaker T., Yinda C.K., Seifer S.N., Gamble A., Williamson B., Judson S.D., de Wit E., Lloyd-Smith J.O., Munster V.J (2020). Effectiveness of N95 Respirator Decontamination and Reuse against SARS-CoV-2 Virus. Emerg Infect Dis. doi:10.3201/eid2609.201524