Chinese researchers have unveiled a crucial mutation in the Ebola virus that significantly enhanced its infectivity during a major outbreak, providing new insights for epidemic surveillance and drug development. 

The study, published in the journal Cell, focused on the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2018 to 2020, the second-largest in history, which caused over 3,000 infections and more than 2,000 deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.