Word: ebola
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...folks in Alice, Texas, have good reason to be nervous around monkeys. Six years ago, several Philippine macaques imported by the Texas Primate Center in Alice came down with the strain of Ebola virus that had struck monkeys in Reston, Virginia, a year earlier, in a case that inspired the best-selling book The Hot Zone and the movie Outbreak. No humans got sick in either incident, but 100 animals had to be sacrificed...
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control were quick to reassure the public that Ebola Reston is a markedly different virus from the one that killed 244 people in Zaire last year. Ebola Zaire, as that strain is known, is one of the world's deadliest viruses; 80% of its victims bleed to death...
...Ebola Reston, by contrast, has never been linked to illness in humans. Still, doctors are closely monitoring everybody who had any contact with the monkeys in Texas. Experts warn that they can't rule out the possibility that Ebola Reston could mutate into a strain that is fatal to humans. Says a spokesman for the cdc: "It would be folly to predict what the virus will...
...only here because I had to stop off at the hospital," joked Chase, after bumping his head into the building's doorjamb. "I'm getting laxative treatments for that pesky Ebola...
...best guess is that Ebola resides in a small, forest-dwelling animal, possibly a rodent. Insects such as mosquitoes, abundant in the rainy season, could transfer the blood-borne pathogen to chimps--or to humans. But, cautions Heymann, that's no more than speculation. "We're still in the dark," he says. Meanwhile, officials in Gabon are playing it safe. Last week they warned villagers not to touch dead animals found in the forest or kill any that are "behaving strangely." Until researchers know what they're dealing with, that's probably prudent. As the villagers of Mayibout now know...