Bush Pig
Biology News - Pattern of Human Ebola Outbreaks Linked to Wildlife and Climate
November 14, 2006
Pattern of Human Ebola Outbreaks Linked to Wildlife and Climate
By Sherry Seethaler
Bush Pig
Credit: S. Lahm, UCSD
A visiting biologist at the University of California, San Diego and her colleagues in Africa and Britain have shown that there are close linkages between outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in human and wildlife populations, and that climate may influence the spread of the disease.
The decade-long study, published this month (with a cover date of January) in the journal Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, tracked animal disease outbreaks and human exposure to the Ebola virus in Gabon and adjoining northwestern Republic of the Congo (RoC). The researchers found that many additional wildlife and human populations within and outside of known epidemic zones have been exposed to the virus. When they considered disease outbreaks in all mammals, not just humans, the spread of Ebola no longer seemed erratic and inexplicable.
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