The Ebola Cotton Factory

[Aliza R. Panitz]

In article <3p96oc$h49 at mark.ucdavis.edu>,
John Lester  <ez056368 at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> [paraphrased from "The Coming Plague"]
> 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.
 
Would it be possible that the animal reservoir for the filoviruses is 
something small enough to escape notice, such as a dust mite?  If the 
host species isn't a bloodsucker, then human transmission could be based
on physical contact (such as getting contaminated dust in a cut).

Granted, this seems like a weak transmission chain, but then again, Ebola
doesn't seem like a wildly successful virus...

 - Aliza (just an interested layperson)

P.S.  Does anyone have pointers to online info about Lassa Fever?  I don't
have access to a decent library...

-- 
Aliza R. Panitz   http://www.access.digex.net/~buglady  |  The Net is good.
Preferred address: buglady at access.digex.net             |  It is also goo.
Also: buglady at bronze.lcs.mit.edu  an86347 at anon.penet.fi |  - Playboy, June 1994
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