Scientists net Bats to look for Marburg Virus

[L Roebuck]

Scientists net bats to look for Marburg virus source

(CIDRAP News) – The hunt for the vector responsible for spreading Marburg hemorrhagic fever took global health experts wearing protective gear to the mine entrances in a remote Ugandan forest last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported.

Their mission is to trap bats, which are suspected as the source of a recent Marburg outbreak that killed a Ugandan miner in mid July and is thought to have sickened one of his coworkers, according to recent WHO reports. The WHO said there may be as many as three more suspected cases that have been linked to the mine, located in the western part of the country.

Lab tests recently confirmed the Marburg virus infection in blood samples from both the dead miner and one of his close contacts, according to an Aug 14 WHO report.

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[jonsdigs]

Scientists trace the Marburg virus in fruit bats
African Press Agency
8/22/07

Kampala (Uganda) Fruit bats roosting in caves in Kamwenge district of southwestern Uganda have been identified as the source of the Marburg virus, which killed one person and infected two last month.

A team of scientists from the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control, reported on Wednesday that tests of 1,100 bats of various species indicated that only one common species of fruit bat carried the Marburg Virus.

A study on the virus published in the latest issue of Public Library of Science Journal suggests that Marburg may be more common than previously thought.

The Marburg virus was found in the species Rousettus aegyptiacus, a common type of fruit bat that lives in caves at gold mines in Kamwenge, where the three infected men worked.

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[L Roebuck]

Fruit bats the culprit in spreading Marburg virus
News-Medical.Net, Disease/Infection News

Scientists have found that fruit bats that roost in caves could be the culprits in the spread of the deadly Marburg virus.

The Marburg virus causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever and is a cousin of the equally deadly but possibly more infamous, Ebola virus.

The researchers discovered the virus in only one common species of fruit bats after testing 1,100 bats of various species; this is the first time it has been detected in an animal other than a monkey.

But the research team which discovered the presence of the virus at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at the Medical Research Institute in Franceville, Gabon, say Marburg may be more common than previously thought.

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[Sharon Faulkner]

Yet another article:

Fruit bat blamed for virus
Published: 22 August 2007

The African outbreak of the Marburg disease could be related to the fruit bat, according to US and Gabonese scientists.

Researchers from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Centre International de Recherches Medicales de Franceville in Gabon found the virus among one species of the rodent, after testing over 1,000 from caves in Gabon and DR Congo.

The Rousettus aegypticus bat is found widely across sub-Saharan Africa, an area repeatedly hit by the virus in the past.

The Marburg disease killed more than 300 people in Angola in 2004 and 2005 and the recent death of a Marburg-infected man in western Uganda has prompted the new study.

In conversation with AFP new agency, Eric Leroy, one of the study's authors, said: "Identifying Marburg infection in the African fruit bats brings us one step closer to understanding this deadly disease."

The Marburg disease - like its close relative, the Ebola virus - has caused outbreaks with mortality rates of between 80 and 90 per cent in the past, reports the BBC.


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[Sharon Faulkner]

Probing bats' secrets
August 27, 2007

Bats are believed to be a reservoir for a number of virulent zoonotic (meaning transmitted from animals) infections that can afflict humans. The SARS coronavirus. Ebola and now Marburg. Nipah virus. Hendra virus. Rabies.

Last week a team of scientists from the CDC and research institutes in Gabon published a paper revealing they had found the strongest evidence to date that the virus that causes Marburg hemorrhagic fever resides in at least one type of fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus.


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[Brian Roebuck]

If it does turn out that fruit bats are carriers of so many dread diseases they surely will become endangered very quickly. I can imagine they will be hunted down and exterminated to prevent the spread of such disease. I don't like the thought of that at all but one can understand the desire to protect local peoples form such danger. Education could prevent the contact between humans and fruit bats as well having essentially the same effect. Regardless the usual human reaction to danger is try to eliminate the hazard instead of keeping away from it.