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To: Smokin' Joe

Well, to start, I would recommend 3 things:

Vitamin C
Zinc
Colloidal silver

I find it very very interesting that what they think might be a vector is a fruit bat. Fruit bats are one of the few species on Earth that DO NOT make their own Vitamin C.
Humans and the great apes being another.


12 posted on 08/12/2014 8:39:28 AM PDT by djf (OK. Well, now, lemme try to make this clear: If you LIKE your lasagna, you can KEEP your lasagna!)
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To: djf
CDC Filovirus fact sheet

Years ago, we were on a similar thread about a Marburg outbreak in Africa (also a filovirus), and determined that mines, rain, bushmeat, and caves all seemed to be associated with the outbreaks. Because the outbreaks came and went over a fairly large region, a migratory host was suspect.

Furthermore, the outbreaks always seemed to originate in rural areas.

Fruit bats in the region are migratory.

Primates could contract the virus from eating contaminated fruit (bat guano, partially eaten by the bats) or contact with guano while foraging.

Both bats and primates are eaten by humans (as is fruit), the former as a delicacy, the latter as "bushmeat". Preparation of the carcass for cooking would expose the preparer to the virus--any nicks or cuts or lapse in hygiene would virtually guarantee infection. So the hunter or the cook could have equal opportunities for infection.

Caves and mines are prime hangouts (no pun intended) for bats, especially when it is raining.

Mines have ample opportunity for scrapes and small injuries which break the skin: introduction of guano to such a wound would result in infection if the bat is a carrier.

The bats are known to carry the virus, but do not die from it.

Because of their migratory nature, opportunities for exposure would be limited in duration, but would occur sporadically over a relatively large area--which made the host species even more puzzling at first--but fits with a migratory host.

That pretty much wraps up the basic logic.

Both Ebola and Marburg are filoviruses.

19 posted on 08/12/2014 9:07:06 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: djf
Well, to start, I would recommend 3 things:

Vitamin C

Zinc

Colloidal silver

I find it very very interesting that what they think might be a vector is a fruit bat. Fruit bats are one of the few species on Earth that DO NOT make their own Vitamin C. Humans and the great apes being another.

I've read that one odd feature of this particular strain of Ebola is that ALL vitamin C is quickly stripped from the body. They don't know if the virus is causing vitamin C to be eliminated from the body as a defense mechanism, sensing it as a threat, or as fuel for its reproduction and/or sustenance. The rapid and total loss of vitamin C is one of the devastating features of the virus.

23 posted on 08/12/2014 9:36:37 AM PDT by USCG SimTech (Honored to serve since '71)
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