Boosting understanding of Lassa Fever virus epidemiology: Field testing a novel assay to identify past Lassa Fever virus infection in blood and oral fluids of survivors and unexposed controls in Sierra Leone

• Onome Akpogheneta ,

  Roles Data curation, Investigation, Project administration, Software, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  Current address: Gulbenkian Institute, Oeiras, Portugal

  ¶‡ OA and SD share first authorship on this work. RT and HB are joint senior authors on this work.

  Affiliation Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom

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• Steve Dicks ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Writing – review & editing

  ¶‡ OA and SD share first authorship on this work. RT and HB are joint senior authors on this work.

  Affiliations Blood Borne Virus Unit, Public Health England, Colindale, United Kingdom, Microbiology Services, NHS Blood and Transplant, London, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4709-9664

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• Donald Grant,

  Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• Zainab Kanneh,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• Brima Jusu,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• Joseph Edem-Hotah,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Faculty of Nursing, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6086-181X

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• Lansana Kanneh,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• Foday Alhasan,

  Roles Data curation, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• Michael Gbakie,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Kenema Government Hospital Lassa Fever Unit, Kenema, Sierra Leone

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• John Schieffelin,

  Roles Data curation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Sections of Infectious Disease, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6642-5739

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• Samreen Ijaz,

  Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Blood Borne Virus Unit, Public Health England, Colindale, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6658-3542

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• Richard Tedder ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing

  ¶‡ OA and SD share first authorship on this work. RT and HB are joint senior authors on this work.

  Affiliation Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9672-5721

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• Hilary Bower

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: hilary.bower@lshtm.ac.uk

  ¶‡ OA and SD share first authorship on this work. RT and HB are joint senior authors on this work.

  Affiliation UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/Public Health England, London, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1541-6637

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