From: woodall@wadsworth.org
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 1996 20:31:54 -0500
Subject: PRO/AH> Ebola: hunt for reservoir

EBOLA: HUNT FOR RESERVOIR
=========================
Source: newswires. 16 Nov.1996 (thanks to OUTBREAK - http://www.outbreak.org/)

In June 1996 a Red Colobus monkey was found dead in the Tai Forest, Cote
d'Ivoire, and "tested positive" for Ebola virus (the report does not say
what kind of test was used, or whether the actual virus was isolated).

Dr Pierre Formenty leads a WHO team which, since April 1996, has been
searching the Tai Forest for the reservoir of Ebola virus, which killed
chimpanzees there in 1994 and sickened a Swiss scientist who autopsied one
of them.  He warned against jumping to the conclusion that the Red Colobus
is the long-sought reservoir because, since the monkey lives in bands, more
than one monkey would have been expected to have perished.
[But note that several species of monkeys are reservoir hosts of yellow
fever virus in Africa, and most of them do not die when infected with yellow
fever - Mod.JW]

He mentioned that the victim could have caught the virus from a bat roosting
in the same tree, or a rodent that left its droppings on a leaf eaten by the
herbivorous monkey.

- --
Jack Woodall, Ph.D., Director, FAS ProMED-mail
Wadsworth Center, New York State Dept. of Health, Albany NY
jack.woodall@wadsworth.org
http://www.fas.org/promed/
http://www.healthnet.org/promed.html
http://www.outbreak.org/cgi-unreg/dynaserve.exe/credits.html#jack
...............................................................jw