Virulence and host range

[Franck Brunel]

Dear Lightkeeper,

							Please excuse any lack of nettiquette on my part-I am new to this 
area-however, I think I may be able to clear up this problem of aerial 
transmission vs. intimate fluid contact in terms of Ebola spread. The 
airborne form I believe you are referring to is the Reston monkey 
incident and the Zaire outbreaks are the ones we are more familiar with 
as human epidemics. The Ebola that caused each are actually inherently 
different at the genetic level. They are actually referred to now as 
Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire (and another is Ebola Sudan). The makeup of 
Ebola Reston is such that it can collect and be spread through the lung 
mucosa, whereas the Ebola Zaire apparently cannot do this. It is not the 
host, I believe, but the virus form, that causes the differences we have 
seen. Thus, this begs the question; If monkeys can catch a form that is 
spread aerially, can humans be far behind?


																													-Sean
--

Sean Stevens PhD: The Rockefeller University, New York, USA. 
(212) 327 7605
stevens at rockvax.rockefeller.edu http://129.85.22.153/