{"id":10434,"date":"2022-06-21T06:51:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T06:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/es\/?post_type=product&p=10434"},"modified":"2022-06-21T06:52:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T06:52:20","slug":"searching-for-ebolas-hideout","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/es\/searching-for-ebolas-hideout\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching for Ebola\u2019s hideout"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the West African epidemic, Ebola disappeared. But having hidden somewhere \u2013 maybe in forest animals, maybe closer to home \u2013 it\u2019s now re-emerged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Leigh Cowart joins the hunt for its hiding place.<\/h4>\n
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There was a certain kind of quiet hopefulness when, in late April 2016, the last Ebola patient of the West African epidemic \u2013 a two-year-old boy \u2013 walked out of a treatment facility in Monrovia, Liberia. With the smouldering embers of the outbreak fading, there was cause for celebration. But there remained the impotent fear of the unseen: Ebola was still out there, lurking. We just didn\u2019t know where it was hiding or when it would be back.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s now resurfaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, emerging in the country\u2019s rural north-west before spreading to Mbandaka, a city of nearly 350,000. The threat of a new epidemic looms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ebola is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it can spread between animals and humans. It burns hot and fast through people. Its ruthless nature means that we are often the end of the line for the virus: a host like us that gets too sick too fast, that dies too quickly, cuts down the virus\u2019s ability to jump into a fresh body. To remain a threat, Ebola needs a safe house in which to lie low and hide.<\/p>\n

Such a long-term host, the quiet refuge of a pathogen, is known as a reservoir species. If a reservoir species is Ebola\u2019s safe house, we are its luxury retirement property, a place for it to live out its last days with a bang. The trouble is that we aren\u2019t sure where the safe house is. If we are going to be vigilant against Ebola\u2019s re-emergence, we need to find it.<\/p>\n

Searches so far have focused on forested parts of Africa, the home of a number of possible reservoirs. Classically, bats have been considered the most likely culprits, given that they overlap with humans geographically and can carry Ebola infection without symptoms. Based on research that has tested a wide variety of small mammals, bats, primates, insects and amphibians, several species of fruit bat have emerged as possible candidates.<\/p>\n

A 2005 study published in\u00a0Nature\u00a0<\/em>and helmed by Eric Leroy tested over 1,000 small vertebrates in central Africa and found evidence of symptomless Ebola infection in three species of fruit bat, suggesting that these animals \u2013 which are sometimes hunted for bushmeat \u2013 might be Ebola\u2019s reservoir. An editor\u2019s summary ran alongside the paper, titled simply:\u00a0\u2018Ebola virus: don\u2019t eat the bats\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"