**5. The way forward**

NGS has proved to be extremely useful and has become an integral part of virus research and opened up new vistas in studying viral evolution. Ample proof of the same is the characteri‐ zation of the *Ebola virus* infection in West Africa (2014 outbreak), wherein the patient samples were sequenced using NGS to trace the origin and transmission of the infection as part of the global epidemic surveillance strategy [128]. The discovery followed by the development of vaccine [129] has been made in a short time span owing to the genomics-enabled translational research. In order to harness the use of NGS in virology, care needs to be exerted to avoid misinterpretation and over-interpretation of the data. It must be noted that starting from sample collection, DNA/RNA extraction, PCR amplification, library preparation up to sequencing are prone to errors, which have been explained [130] very comprehensively. Circumventing these issues, application of NGS in virology has enabled basic and applied research to take a quantum leap. The thorough understanding of the intricacies of a quasis‐ pecies structure aids in tracing the mutational network operational due to selection pressures. Furthermore, characterization of intra- and inter-host viral evolution helps in understanding the role of host immune system on the genetic variability of viruses. Such data when analysed in the context of population genetics provide constructs to understand emergence of new strains/lineages. Reverse vaccinology [131] enabled via genomics is expected to accelerate the rate of vaccine discovery, thereby, reducing the virus-associated disease burden.
