« Home | More than just a pretty face » | Six years ago today » | Everything old is new again » | Whole hog analysis of emerging diseases » | Synopsis of Maggiore's Primetime Live Appearance » | ID rumblings in Muscatine, Iowa » | Thai 5-year-old becomes 70th known H5N1 death » | Science year in review » | Is Indonesia even dumber than the United States? » | State science standards are in » 

Thursday, December 15, 2005 

New Ebola outbreak in African primates?

From ProMed:

Early reports of great ape mortalities from local people in the Cuvette-Ouest region of the Congo Republic are currently being investigated by a wildlife health team including Dr Alain Ondzie of WCS in coordination with government authorities and researchers in the area. If carcasses can be found, samples will be sent for diagnostic work to CIRMF/IRD network partners. The RoC Ministry of Health is mobilizing community outreach efforts while the wildlife investigation is underway.

This is in the same area where there was an Ebola outbreak earlier in 2005.
Ebola in African primates has been a real problem since about 2001. While, as I mentioned previously, human cases of the disease have been fairly minimal, primate researchers estimate that thousands of gorillas have died in the past decade from Ebola during outbreaks in Gabon and Côte d'Ivoire. In Gabon, gorilla sightings (or other evidence of their presence, such as dung and trails) decreased by 50% in a few short years; chimpanzee sightings decreased by 88%. Eight groups of gorillas that had been monitored by primatologists for 10 years disappeared completely between October 2002 and January 2003. Several gorilla carcasses that were found were positive for Ebola, suggesting this played a role in the population decrease.

I mentioned here that fruit bats may be a reservoir for Ebola, and that a hypothesis has been put forth that Ebola may be a plant virus. Gorillas are, of course, vegetarians; some species eat up to 200 different plant species. Chimpanzees are omnivores, but fruit and leaves still make up a large percentage of their diet. Again, this idea is still unconfirmed, but it's intriguing.

Refs and further reading:

Formentry et al., 1999. J Infect Dis. "Ebola virus outbreak among wild chimpanzees living in a rain forest of Côte d'Ivoire." 179S1:S120-126.

Leroy et al., 2004. Science. "Multiple Ebola virus transmission events and rapid decline of central African wildlife." 303:387-90.

Vogel, G., 2003. Science. "Can great apes be saved from Ebola?" 300:1645.

|

About me

  • I'm Tara C. Smith
  • From Iowa, United States
  • I'm a mom and a scientist, your basic stressed-out, wanna-have-it-all-and-do-it-all Gen Xer. Recently transplanted from Ohio to Iowa, I've spent most of my life in the midwest (with 4 years of college spent out east in "soda" territory). My main interest, and the subject of my research, is infectious disease: how does the microbe cause illness? What makes one strain nasty, and another "avirulent?" Are the latter really not causing any disease, or could some of those be possible for the development of chronic disease years down the road? Additionally, I've spent a lot of time discussing the value of teaching evolution, and educating others about "intelligent design" and other forms of creationism. My interest in history of science and medicine is also useful as a way to tie all of the above interests together. [Disclaimer: the views here are solely my own, and do not represent my employer, my spouse, that guy who's always sitting by the fountain when I come into work, or anyone else with whom I may be remotely affiliated.]
My profile

Links

Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates

Powered by Blogger

Creative Commons License
The Tangled Bank Locations of visitors to this page
Enter your email address below to subscribe to Aetiology!


powered by Bloglet


The Evolution Education Site Ring

This site ring is owned by John Stear

Previous Site

List Sites

Random Site

Join Ring

Next Site