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This is "double plus ungood" Ebola disease data. You have to kill and burn the bodies of all pets exposed to Ebola in a low resource disease outbreak environment. ----------------- Postmortem Stability of Ebola Virus http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/5/15-0041_article Abstract The ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has highlighted questions regarding stability of the virus and detection of RNA from corpses. We used Ebola virus–infected macaques to model humans who died of Ebola virus disease. Viable virus was isolated 7 days posteuthanasia; viral RNA was detectable for 10 weeks. Snips: Viral RNA was detectible in all swab samples and tissue biopsy specimens at multiple time points (Figure 1). For swab samples (Figure 1, panel A), the highest amount of viral RNA was in oral, nasal, and blood samples; oral and blood swab specimens consistently showed positive results for all animals until week 4 for oral specimens and week 3 for blood, when 1 animal was negative for each specimen type. Furthermore, oral swab specimens had the highest amount of viral RNA after the first 2 weeks of sampling, although after the 4-week sampling time point, some samples from individual animals were negative. In all samples, RNA was detectable sporadically for the entire 10-week period, except for blood, which had positive results for <9 weeks. Tissue samples were more consistently positive within the first few weeks after euthanasia (Figure 1, panel B). All samples from the liver and lung were positive for the first 3 weeks, and spleen samples were positive for the first 4 weeks, at which time lung and spleen samples were no longer tested because of decay and scarcity of tissue. Muscle sample results were sporadic: a sample from 1 animal was negative at the 1-day time point and at several times throughout sampling. [snip] In summary, we present postmortem serial sampling data for EBOV-infected animals in a controlled environment. Our results show that the EBOV RT-PCR RNA target is highly stable, swabbing upper respiratory mucosa is efficient for obtaining samples for diagnostics, and tissue biopsies are no more effective than simple swabbing for virus detection. These results will directly aid interpretation of epidemiologic data collected for human corpses by determining whether a person had EVD at the time of death and whether contact tracing should be initiated. Furthermore, viable virus can persist for >7 days on surfaces of bodies, confirming that transmission from deceased persons is possible for an extended period after death. These data are also applicable for interpreting samples collected from remains of wildlife infected with EBOV, especially nonhuman primates, and to assess risks for handling these carcasses.