ViroBlogy

In 2008–09, evidence of Reston ebolavirus (RESTV) infection was found in domestic pigs and pig workers in the Philippines. With species of bats having been shown to be the cryptic reservoir of filoviruses elsewhere, the Philippine government, in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, assembled a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional team to investigate Philippine bats as the possible reservoir of RESTV.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.virologyj.com

I recall at the time of its discovery, thinking that the virus must have reservoir species back home in the East – and that the fact that no disease had ever been reported from there in humans, meant it was completely under the radar.

There was also the issue that the virus seemed to have been transmitted between monkeys in the Reston facility without any direct contact – and even between rooms, which would imply airborne transmission.

Which frightened the cr@p out of many people, and I am sure especially those primate centre workers who were found to be seropositive for the virus, in the absence of any symptoms – even though at teh time, unsanitary conditions and overcrowding were blamed (http://www.mcb.uct.ac.za/ebola/ebolair.html).

It is still something that needs to be looked at seriously: is Ebola Reston more transmissible than Zaire, Sudan and the rest – and if so, why?

Those interested can pick up on what happened at the time, here on the Ebola information pages I ran for a while:

http://www.mcb.uct.ac.za/ebola/ebopage.htm

See on Scoop.it – Plant Molecular Farming

This entry was posted on 18 July, 2015 at 12:05 and is filed under biotechnology, Ebola, Ebola, Evolution, General, General Virology, Vaccines: General, Viruses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.