The Ebola Epidemic In West Africa - Maybe It Was Bats

Thursday, January 1, 2015 - 20:00 in Biology & Nature

The most recent outbreak of the Ebola virus disease occurring in West Africa may have originated from contact between humans and virus-infected bats, according to a new study in EMBO Molecular Medicine, which identifies insectivorous free-tailed bats as plausible reservoirs and expands the range of possible Ebola virus sources to this type of bats. The virus that spread from Meliandou into other areas of Guinea and Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal, represents the largest ever-recorded Ebola outbreak killing 7,800 people as of December 17th 2014.  read more

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