My Candidate for the Ebola Reservoir Organism (was Re:

[Ed Rybicki]

See http://www.uct.ac.za/microbiology/ebopage.html for several 
reasoned comments on just this issue.

> From:          sputnam at tfb.com (Shan Putnam)
> Subject:       Re: My Candidate for the Ebola Reservoir Organism (was Re: Chimpanzee Ebola outbreak)

...
> Has anyone considered looking into the possibility that the natural
> reservoir is a plant?  Could this be a very, very rare virus that
> naturally occurs in plants, but when ingested/inoculated (via a thorn)
> into a warm-blood animals it adapts to that host.  I know that the
> outer membrane of the virus is acquired via a "budding" process
> throught eukaryotic cells.  I have read/heard that there has been a
> lot of cash, time and sweat spent looking for it's natural home with
> absolutely no luck.  Just a wild thought. 
 ______________________________________________________
 |     Ed Rybicki, PhD      |  ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za   |
 |    Dept Microbiology     | University of Cape Town |
 | Private Bag, Rondebosch  |   7700, South Africa    |
 |   fax: x27-21-650 4023   | phone: x27-21-650-3265  |
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