Fruit Bats May Harbor Deadly Ebola Virus
Debora MacKenzie writes in NewScientist:
Scientists may have tracked down the natural reservoir of the deadly disease Ebola. When not in action it may be biding its time in fruit bats.
The virus causes sporadic, lethal outbreaks in people and apes in Africa, but no one knew where the Ebola virus spends the rest of its time. Now Eric Leroy at the International Centre for Medical Research in Franceville, Gabon, and colleagues think they have tracked it down to three species of fruit bat.
Previous campaigns to test animals, including bats, in outbreak zones have failed to find the virus. This time the effort succeeded, says Leroy, because the team sampled bats near where carcasses of apes killed by Ebola were found, within days of their deaths. Overall, they trapped and tested over 1000 small animals in the outbreak zones.
posted by Fergie @ 11/30/2005 10:58:00 AM
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