• Question: How did the first person to get ebola catch it?

    Asked by Eilidh to Carmen, Daniel, Laura, Noel, Steph on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Noel Carter

      Noel Carter answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      It is thought that virus lives in a bat population which is doesn’t harm then infects larger primates (Monkeys and apes) causing death. Where human populations live near primates they come into contact with it and the infection begins in humans. I think it was first reported in 1976.

    • Photo: Stephanie Dyson

      Stephanie Dyson answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Someone (and it might have been Carmen, one of the other scientists) said yesterday that people think it was passed on by eating undercooked bat meat but nobody knows for sure.

      Steph

    • Photo: Carmen Denman

      Carmen Denman answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      Hi there,

      Excellent question. Glad you are interested in the current hot topic in virology! This is what I read and learned from the world health organisation website and I passed it on to another student who asked this same question the other day.

      “It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

      Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.”

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