Posted on 07/29/2014 9:17:41 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
There are no gorillas in West Africa, so specialists think this outbreak is linked to fruit bats. In 2007 in Uganda, an Ebola outbreak was traced to “a couple of kids playing with fruit bats in a cave. They came home with two dead fruit bats and the mothers cooked them,” said Dr. Estrella Lasry, a tropical medicine advisor to Doctors Without Borders.
Researchers still don’t know the exact cause of this particular outbreak, but it might have to do with the local practice of eating bats for food, according to Jonathan Epstein, an epidemiologist at EcoHealth Alliance. “It's unclear whether it occurred due to butchering a bat, exposure to bat bodily fluids, or eating some food or fruit that was contaminated by saliva, urine, or feces from the bat, which may contain Ebola virus,” he said. Pig farms in Africa also often attract bats, which also may have been a cause.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.theatlantic.com ...
That’s basically how Gwyneth Paltrow died in “Contagion”.
Africa?
Excellent movie!
They’ve been around long enough to have figured that out for themselves, but haven’t. You can’t apply civilization like a coat of paint and expect it to stick.
Then there’s Sahara, with Penelope Cruz and Matt McConoghey
‘Frica.
Ebola, and many other similar deadly diseases originate in the close vicinity of Lake Victoria. That place is the source of a great many fatal viruses.
Ping
Thanks. It’s in my Netflix queue.
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