Ok, so the CDC has confirmed..and other things!

[Lisa Ronthal]

Vampire Junction (vampires at freenet.ufl.edu) wrote:
: This mornings newspaper reported that "Officials at the CDC, who are 
: analyzing blood samples from the current outbreak in Zairesaid this virus 
: is *extremely similar* to the Ebola Zaire strain that ravaged Yambuku 19 
: years ago.  'You have a virus that over a 20 year period of time has 
: remained relatively intact' said CDC spokesman Bob Howard.    That in 
: itself is puzzling, because viruses such as Ebola are highly unstable and 
: prone to mutate.  There is no explanation yet for the similarity between 
: samples of the virus and the Zaire virus of 19 years ago.  The similarity 
: raises the question:  Has the Yambuku virus been biding its time for 
: nearly 20 years, incubating in living creatures such as mosquitoes or 
: pigs, only to erupt once again now in humans?"

I *really* hate to encourage paranoia and all that (not least because I'm 
already plenty scared shitless, thank you very much), but given the high 
mutability of Ebola, is this even possible? Or is it fishy? I mean, has the 
CDC and the army and anyone else who had samples of E. Zaire '76 checked 
their inventory and security lately? 

Just hoping to God that some nut/terrorist/cult didn't get ideas from the 
last six months' spate of Ebola books, movies, etc. and do something 
unbelievably stupid-clever... ?


Also-- have any of the current outbreak's identifiable victims recovered?


Lisa, no expert, just a nervous layperson.