Ebola attacks the liver in humans and is therefore in the blood stream and feces, but not in high concentrations in the lungs. But it is a rapid changing RNA sequence. This could get interesting if it gets into chickens like the Avian Influenza. Wonder what would happen if a bird has both diseases!!!
This is an excellent article excerpt:
Pig-to-monkey Ebola: is there something in the air?
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2012/11/19/pig-to-monkey-ebola-is-there-something-in-the-air/
Ebola has long been known to be a zoonotic virus–one which jumps between species. Though it took several decades to find evidence of Ebola virus in bats, these animals had previously been associated with human index cases of Ebola disease have worked in bat-infested warehouses or traveled to caves where bats roost. Non-human primates have also become infected with the virus, sometimes transmitting the virus to humans when killed primates are butchered for food. Ebola has also been suggested to infect dogs and other wild animals. However, livestock are a newer angle to Ebola virus ecology.
Ebola was first found in pigs in 2008 in the Philippines. This was the Reston virus, named after its discovery in imported Filipino monkeys in a facility in Reston, Virginia, in 1989. Though this virus spread among the captive monkeys, no humans came down with symptoms. However, follow-up studies showed that some humans did develop an immune response to the Reston virus–suggesting they had been infected, even if they didn’t realize it. At the time, there was suggestion that perhaps Reston might be spread via aerosol, as the virus appeared to spread amongst monkeys in two different rooms who did not come into physical contact with one another. However, this was not proven at the time and alternative explanations were possible.
Since then, two experimental studies have examined airborne transmission of Ebola via pigs.
The first study examined transmission of the Zaire strain of Ebola–the nastiest one, which can kill up to 90% of those infected–within laboratory pigs. Pigs were inoculated with the Zaire virus and housed with uninfected pigs, who were later tested and found to have acquired the virus. Interestingly, when the pigs got sick with Ebola Zaire, the symptoms were mainly respiratory and the virus replicated in the lungs. This was quite unlike what Zaire does in humans and our other primate cousins, where it’s a systemic disease and we can find virus in the blood. This suggests that pigs could be infected with even nasty types of Ebola, and we wouldn’t realize it.
Your lungs consist of tiny pipes 1 cell thick filled with blood...