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Health See other Health Articles Title: The 2-year-old boy believed to have triggered the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa was likely infected by playing in a bat tree, scientists say. Yahoo News According to an investigation published by the scientific journal EMBO Molecular Medicine on Tuesday, the current epidemic in West Africa stems from "a single zoonotic transmission event" in Meliandou, Guinea, where the boy, Emile Ouamouno, "may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of insectivorous free‐tailed bats." The bats have been identified by researchers as potential sources for Ebola transmission and "monitoring data show that larger wildlife did not experience a recent decline and is therefore unlikely to have served as the source" of the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the journal said. And fruit bat hunting and butchering are common in southern Guinea, even among children, "facilitating direct human contact" needed to transmit the disease. Emile died in December 2013, followed by his mother, sister, and grandmother. Within months, the virus spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, the United States, Spain, Mali and the United Kingdom — the largest outbreak ever recorded, health officials say. Dr. Fabian Leendertz led a four‐week field mission in southeastern Guinea in April to examine human exposure to bats and other bushmeat, survey local wildlife in the last remaining forests of the area, and capture and sample bats in the village as well as in neighboring forests. The team of researchers discovered the possible cause of the boy's Ebola during a visit to the "index village" of Meliandou, where locals reported that children would frequently play in a hollow tree about 50 meters from Emile's home. View gallery #5 of 10 Most Popular Galleries of 2014: Ebola outbreak … A man is carried away to be tested for Ebola after collapsing on a street in Monrovia December 9, 20 … Villagers reported that the tree caught fire on March 24, releasing a “rain of bats” that were collected for bushmeat. "We found no evidence of additional zoonotic transmission events stemming from the consumption of these bats, but villagers reported disposing of them after a ban on bushmeat consumption was announced the following day," the scientists said. But bad bushmeat was probably not the cause of the outbreak: Consumption of fruit bats in the household is an unlikely source of infection for the index case; no hunters were members of this household and a food item‐borne transmission would likely have affected adults before or concurrently with the index case. Under the assumption that the 2‐year‐old boy was indeed the index case, a source of infection unrelated to food items consumed in the home might be more plausible. The close proximity of a hollow tree housing a large colony of free‐tailed bats (i.e., insectivorous bats), of a species for which serological evidence also suggests EBOV exposure (Pourrut et al, 2009), provided opportunity for infection. Children regularly caught and played with bats in this tree. Since the start of the current outbreak, there have been a total of 19,695 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and 7,693 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. In Guinea, there have been 2,630 Ebola cases and 1,654 deaths — the highest death rate among the three countries. Researchers warn that while the village of Meliandou "had the misfortune to be where the zoonotic transmission event occurred, care needs to be taken to avoid retribution attacks" against bats in the region. "We need to find ways to live together with the wildlife," Leendertz told the BBC. "These bats catch insects and pests, such as mosquitoes. They can eat about a quarter of their body weight in insects a day. "Killing them would not be a solution," he added. "You would have more malaria." Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
2-year-olds in Africa are a whole lot more independent than those in the West; where such independence by children would warrant a visit from CPS.
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