Are Bats Spreading Ebola Across Sub-Saharan Africa?

摘要

The first cases went unrecognized. Ebola had never been seen in Guinea before, so when people became ill with fever, muscle pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, health workers initially assumed Lassa fever or yellow fever-both endemic in the region-were to blame. No one put the pieces together until late March. By then, the virus had been spreading for months. Now, health workers are struggling to contain the outbreak, which has already killed more than 100 and has affected at least two neighboring countries. At the same time, scientists are combing the forests, and the genome of the virus itself, looking for clues to how this strain-well known in Central Africa-ended up so far west, and whether its spread suggests people in forested areas all across sub-Saharan Africa are at risk.