The Ebola Cotton Factory

[John Lester]

I have followed with interest the discussion about Ebola virus -especially
the cotton connection, and would like to paraphrase from "The Coming
Plague" in order to get the cotton pickin' facts clear (sorry)

The cotton factory was the center of the N'zara outbreak not the Maridi.
1000 men worked in the factory at any given time.
Cotton came in at one end freshly picked and was processed room by
room into bolts of cloth.  The highest infection rates were among men
who worked in the cloth room.  4 dead and 5 nonlethal cases, for an
infection rate of 38%.  The room was combed for Animals AND INSECTS
by Francis and Highton.  They combed the room for "anything that moved"
and placed them in liquid nitrogen which was then sent to CDC in Atlanta.
The room was infested with bats, rats, cotton boll weevils, spiders,
and numerous other insects.  None of the animal specimens contained the
virus.

In 1980,  David Heymann discovered that 15% of Cameroonian Pygmies had antibodies
to Ebola indicating that they had been infected.  In this area, 3,000
animals of 100 different species were tested ranging from snakes to chimps.
None were infected.

Please read The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret (1994) for more info on
emerging microbial (read:including bacteria and protozoa) diseases.  It
is a really really good book.

John Lester
Dept of Microbiology/Vet.Med. PMI
UC Davis