Ebola ubiquity

[Robin M. Weare]

Encarnacion Perez, Jr. (e.perezjr. at worldnet.att.net) wrote:
: While all of the news reporters and scientists go on about the changing 
: nature of Ebola Reston and other "Reston-like" Ebola, it is interesting 
: to note that the monkeys in Alice Texas came from the Phillipines.  
: Didn't the original Reston monkeys come from Africa?  If this is true 
: then I think that we may have more of a problem than we realize.
: Then again, if the Reston monkeys also came from the Phillipines, my 
: argument is full of hot air.  But consider this, all of the other Ebola 
: organisms have come from Africa (Zaire, Tai, Marburg) what is this coming 
: out of the Phillipines?  How did it get there in the first place?  How 
: similar is it to the African strains?  Is Ebola in other rain forests 
: that we don't know?

'Twas my understanding that the monkeys taken from the Phillipines originated
in Africa, but either escaped or are raised in outdoor colonies in the Phillipines.
So Ebola Reston presumably originated in Africa and is not "indigenous" to
the islands.

Robin M. Weare
California State University, Long Beach

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