The Ebola virus viewed through an electron microscope.
Posted on 08/21/2014 8:57:13 PM PDT by null and void
The Ebola virus viewed through an electron microscope.
As of mid-2014, Ebola has caused two dozen outbreaks in Africa since the virus first emerged in 1976. (AP Photo/Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine)A scary problem lurks beyond the frenzied efforts to keep people from spreading Ebola: No one knows exactly where the virus comes from or how to stop it from seeding new outbreaks.
Ebola has caused two dozen outbreaks in Africa since it first emerged in 1976. It is coming from somewhere — probably bats — but experts agree they need to pinpoint its origins in nature.
That has had to wait until they can tame the current outbreak, which has claimed more than 1,100 lives in four countries — the worst toll from Ebola in history.
"First and foremost get the outbreak under control. Once that piece is resolved, then go back and find what the source is," said Jonathan Towner, a scientist who helped find the bat source of another Ebola-like disease called Marburg. Towner works for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Others say finding Ebola's origins is more than a down-the-road scientific curiosity.
"Confirming the source would definitely be important," said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.
Throughout history, some of the biggest wins against infectious diseases have involved not just limiting person-to-person spread but also finding and controlling the sources in nature fueling new cases.
Plague was halted after the germ was tied to rat-riding fleas. With the respiratory disease SARS, civet cats played a role. With typhus it was lice, and with bird flu, live poultry markets. Efforts to control MERS, a virus causing sporadic outbreaks in the Middle East, include exploring the role of camels.
In the case of Ebola, health experts think the initial cases in each outbreak get it from eating or handling infected animals. They think the virus may come from certain bats, and in parts of Africa, bats are considered a delicacy.
But bats may not be the whole story or the creature that spread it to humans.
The World Health Organization lists chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines as possibly playing a role. Even pig farms may amplify infection because of fruit bats on the farms, the WHO says.
"It's not clear what the animal is. It's going to take a lot of testing," said Dr. Robert Gaynes, an Emory University infectious disease specialist who worked for the CDC for more than 20 years.
Part of the puzzle is how long the virus has been in West Africa. Previous outbreaks have been in the east and central regions of the continent.
The current outbreak began in rural Guinea, and the first suspected first case was a two-year-old child who died in Gueckedou prefecture in December, researchers wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in April. They did not speculate on how the child may have become infected.
Some scientists think the virus has been lurking in the area for years. They point to the case of a lone scientist who got sick in 1994 after doing an autopsy on a wild chimpanzee in Ivory Coast and to a recent study that explored the possibility that past Ebola cases in the region have gone undiagnosed.
Scientists in the United States and Sierra Leone looked back at hundreds of blood samples that were sent to a testing laboratory in eastern Sierra Leone from 2006 through 2008. The samples initially were checked only for Lassa fever, which is common in West Africa. But when the scientists recently went back and tested for other infections, they found nearly nine percent was Ebola.
One or more types of Ebola virus have "probably been there in the mix" for some time but, for some reason, didn't explode into a widespread epidemic in West Africa until this year, said Stephen Morse, a Columbia University infectious disease expert.
Ebola's jump from animals to people is thought to be rare. Experts say there may be a large degree of bad luck in becoming infected — in a cave associated with a Marburg outbreak, Towner found the virus in only three percent of bats he tested. Even if an animal source is clearly identified and people are warned, "there is always likely to be an occasional exposure — someone who drives off the highway, in essence," Morse said.
But with other diseases, control measures have paid off.
In 2003, when civet cats were tied to SARS, "you could just see the potential for animal-to-human spread" in live animal markets where they were sold and butchered for food, and control of those markets in southern China helped limit the outbreak, said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, an Emory University professor and former head of the CDC.
"If you can eliminate the market either by providing substitute protein sources" or outlawing the sale of that meat, "you can have an impact," Koplan said.
That's tough unless you can provide other food, Towner said.
"It can be a hard sell" to convince people trying to feed families to stay away from something possibly dangerous, he said.
WHO on Ebola: http://www.tinyurl.com/Ebola-facts
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Ebola’s natural source
To the Batcave, hanging from Batpoles—bats.
I highly recommend this OLD book.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the%20coming%20plague
Many of these diseases seem to come from the area of Lake Victoria.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Couple of years ago when an outbreak occurred in Africa, al queda sent their crazies to collect some of it to try to make it in to a weapon.
Whether they were successful or not no one knows.
Here it is Humans or in this case subhumans who think they are humans are eating and fornicating with lower animal life. nuff sed
One of the difficulties in finding the original source of this virus is that people sometimes get sick because they ate a dead primate that they found in the forest, and there is no way to know how the primate got Ebola.
Ever since Ebola was first discovered, in 1976, many attempts have been made to find the reservoir. So far, it has remained hidden, although (as the article points out) bats are suspected.
The virus has clearly been circulating in West Africa for a while. The 3% genetic difference between it and the virus circulating in the Congo shows that it is not new there.
If they had been successful then, we’d know.
They’re trying again.
And of course if we end up with bodies in the street in the US, ebola is apt to find a persistent natural reservoir here as well.
Don’t underestimate the incompetence or maliciousness of the Obama administration on this.
Interesting that for the first time in weeks there isn’t a new Ebola story or ten on FR...
We’re hiding the links on the Surveillance thread..(just kidding). There is still a lot going on.
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
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