[ElenaM]

Well, here, in town, the pigs don't run wild, but imagine Ebola getting out into the farthest rural areas where there is a significant feral pig population...Pigs and dogs will both eat human corpses...

Which town do you mean? The pigs in that video looked to be wandering unimpeded to me but I may have missed something.

Now, the question of whether dogs can pass the virus on to humans or other animals which can needs to be answered.

That's the research I'm waiting for. Village dogs as intermediary hosts makes sense to me in the abstract. Much more sense than many of the hypothesized wild animal interactions I've heard posited as explanations for previous outbreaks. I hope someone is planning that research now.

[Black Agnes]

There is a significant feral pig problem in most of the Continental US. IF ebola ever got into THAT population it would be a big deal. Particularly since it could circulate, mutate, and render ineffective any vaccines. Just like the flu changes from season to season. Only with a disease with 50%+ mortality.

That would suck. Bigtime.

[Smokin' Joe]

By "here", I meant the US. I haven't been in any towns where pigs have free run of the place.

In Africa, of course, it is different.

However, there is a feral pig problem in parts of the US, and stray dogs abound.

American dogs and hogs will eat human meat, it is just more meat to them, just like it is to their African cousins. So the question most imminently applies there, in Africa, but could be important here, too, if things get out of hand...and we haven't talked about scavenging birds and whether the virus would be spread in droppings or destroyed in the gut--or carried.

There is one heck of a lot we don't know about this disease, and for only one or two possible means of transmission to be considered leaves much to be desired...and we haven't mentioned the ubiquitous flies....

[XEHRpa]

Village dogs as intermediary hosts makes sense to me in the abstract.

I can't find the original article at the moment, but this article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11152482/Can-dogs-carry-Ebola.html) cites a 2005 study that mentions the dog risk:

A study published in 2005 pointed to a theoretical risk that dogs could pass the Ebola virus to humans through urine, faeces or saliva, but there is no evidence of this ever having happened, virologists said on Thursday.

[XEHRpa]

Here it is: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/3/04-0981_article, entitled “Ebola Virus Antibody Prevalence in Dogs and Human Risk”