Sunday, August 17, 2014

What is the natural source for Ebola? Yahoo/AP

The Ebola virus. Yahoo/AP

Scientists are working on discovering the natural reservoir animal for the Ebola virus. Yahoo/AP. One of the reasons the disease is feared is that nobody is quite sure where it comes from. Bats have long been suspected of carrying the disease, but monkeys, chimpanzees and pigs can carry it as well. If they can identify the carrier they can warn people to stay away and possibly prevent new outbreaks. Scientists are also trying to discover how Ebola arrived in West Africa in the first place. Before this outbreak the disease was largely contained to East Africa.  

My Comment:
None of this is particularly new news but some people may not have heard it before. Africans have been warned repeatedly of the dangers of so called bush meat, but the lack of other food and general stubbornness has had these warning fall on deaf ears. Fruit bats are the most likely suspect for a natural host but I have heard stories of chimps and gorillas succumbing to the disease as well. They wouldn't be a primary source but both animals are popular for bush meat. The problem is that I don't think Ebola makes all of its host animal(s) sick, which means people could have no idea what they are risking. People would avoid eating a sick looking animal, but in this case they wouldn't be able to tell that the meat was infected.

Also, they didn't mention it in the article, but one of the major risks of the disease spreading globally, is that in new environments it could find a new host and make the disease survive in areas it wouldn't normally live. That could allow the disease to crop up again if it ever comes under control. That might be what happened in west Africa. Ebola could be a lot like how the plague is now. Animals still carry it and people get sick once in a while in places that were far removed from the original source of the disease. Of course antibiotics can treat plague, no proven treatments exist for Ebola. 

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