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Fruit bats carry deadly Marburg virus
GALLO/OSF
This week–
SOUNDBITES area they were found supports this conclusion. The bats harbouring Ebola and Marburg all come from the same sub-family. The three species with Ebola are forest-dwelling, while the one with Marburg lives in caves and mines. Most human cases of Marburg have also been associated with caves and mines. Perhaps, says Leroy, this is how Ebola and Marburg diverged – one spreading among free-living fruit bats, the other specific to cave dwellers. Peter Walsh of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who has tracked a –Source of a deadly infection– spreading wave of Ebola virus across Africa (New Scientist, 5 November 2005, p 8), says it is too early to say the viruses are not carried by other bat species too. And while marked genetic differences between viruses in distinct Marburg outbreaks suggest that it can spend a long time confined to bats in just one Ebola cause sporadic outbreaks of cave, this doesn’t mean it cannot disease in people in Africa, but the also spread in occasional epidemics among more scattered animal that harbours these viruses for the rest of the time has bats: the Gabon virus is very similar to the virus recovered from proved elusive. Hundreds of wild the Marburg outbreak in humans animals were tested before Eric in nearby Angola, Walsh notes. Leroy and colleagues at the When vaccines against International Centre for Medical Marburg become available, Walsh Research in Franceville, Gabon, says, it would be prudent to give found traces of Ebola in three them to anyone going into species of fruit bat in 2005 (New African caves or mines. ● Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 20). Their breakthrough came when sensitive PCR analysis revealed ON THE HUNT FOR A KILLER genes of the Ebola virus in bat tissues. Leroy and his team used :istribution of the common African bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) the same technique to look for the Marburg virus, which they have now found in Rousettus aegyptiacus bats. They have also found antibodies to Marburg in healthy bats, suggesting the animals had previously been UGANDA infected (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0000764). While KENYA GABON no one has yet recovered whole, ANGOLA live virus from bats – final proof that they carry Marburg – “I think we can be sure that these fruit bats are the reservoir of Marburg virus,” Leroy says. The fact that CWhXkh]l_hkiekjXh[Wai ZIMBABWE there was no obvious epidemic in 8Wji\ekdZm_j^l_hki humans or other animals in the
‹ If we don’t change our ways, we’re going to be in the funeral parlours… because we’re all going to be fat and dead.› Steve Holland, chairman of Mississippi’s public health committee, on the latest survey showing that the state is the fattest in the US, with more than 30 per cent of its adults now considered obese (The Washington Post, 28 August)
‹ Maybe we couldn’t go to Tahiti, Bermuda or Africa. But we had something nobody else had – our very own toxic waste dump.›
Marburg virus found in fruit bats
Andrea Stierle, a biologist at the University of Montana, on hopes that microorganisms living in Berkeley Pit lake, in Butte, Montana, could be used to treat cancer. The lake holds 140 billion litres of contaminated water (Wired, 21 August)
DEBORA MACKENZIE
‹ It was so cool, like running on air. You couldn’t feel it.›
“Ebola and Marburg may have diverged as one spread among free-living fruit bats, the other among cave dwellers” primates, and the first time it has been found in Gabon, suggesting that Marburg may be more widespread than previously thought. Meanwhile a team of scientists is testing bats in a mine in Uganda for Marburg, after two miners there contracted the disease last month and one died. Marburg and its close relative 14 | NewScientist | 1 September 2007
Tom Wood, age 12, on the 2.5-metrehigh peaks of froth whipped up in the sea at Yamba, New South Wales, Australia, by cyclonic winds (The Times, London, 28 August)
‹ She loves running. I do not impose my will on her.› Zhang Jianmin, father of 8-year-old Zhang Huimin, who has arrived in Beijing, China, after running an average of 65 kilometres per day for 55 days – a total of 3560 kilometres – to celebrate the 2008 Olympics. Zhang denies that the long run has damaged his daughter’s health (Reuters, 28 August)
‹ This is an immense ecological disaster. It’s a recipe to burn the whole country.›
SOURCE: PLoS ONE
MARBURG virus has a fearsome reputation. An outbreak in Angola in 2005 left more than 300 people dead and many more sick with the severe and highly contagious form of haemorrhagic fever it causes. Yet the animal that carries the virus and transmits it to humans has remained a mystery. Now researchers working in Gabon have found the virus in a cave-dwelling African fruit bat. This is the first time it has been found outside humans or other
Theodota Nantsou, conservation manager at WWF Greece, on how fires, suspected to have been started by arsonists, have destroyed 2.5 million hectares and 110 villages in the southern Peloponnese (The Guardian, London, 28 August)
www.newscientist.com
This week–
SOUNDBITES area they were found supports this conclusion. The bats harbouring Ebola and Marburg all come from the same sub-family. The three species with Ebola are forest-dwelling, while the one with Marburg lives in caves and mines. Most human cases of Marburg have also been associated with caves and mines. Perhaps, says Leroy, this is how Ebola and Marburg diverged – one spreading among free-living fruit bats, the other specific to cave dwellers. Peter Walsh of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who has tracked a –Source of a deadly infection– spreading wave of Ebola virus across Africa (New Scientist, 5 November 2005, p 8), says it is too early to say the viruses are not carried by other bat species too. And while marked genetic differences between viruses in distinct Marburg outbreaks suggest that it can spend a long time confined to bats in just one Ebola cause sporadic outbreaks of cave, this doesn’t mean it cannot disease in people in Africa, but the also spread in occasional epidemics among more scattered animal that harbours these viruses for the rest of the time has bats: the Gabon virus is very similar to the virus recovered from proved elusive. Hundreds of wild the Marburg outbreak in humans animals were tested before Eric in nearby Angola, Walsh notes. Leroy and colleagues at the When vaccines against International Centre for Medical Marburg become available, Walsh Research in Franceville, Gabon, says, it would be prudent to give found traces of Ebola in three them to anyone going into species of fruit bat in 2005 (New African caves or mines. ● Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 20). Their breakthrough came when sensitive PCR analysis revealed ON THE HUNT FOR A KILLER genes of the Ebola virus in bat tissues. Leroy and his team used :istribution of the common African bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) the same technique to look for the Marburg virus, which they have now found in Rousettus aegyptiacus bats. They have also found antibodies to Marburg in healthy bats, suggesting the animals had previously been UGANDA infected (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0000764). While KENYA GABON no one has yet recovered whole, ANGOLA live virus from bats – final proof that they carry Marburg – “I think we can be sure that these fruit bats are the reservoir of Marburg virus,” Leroy says. The fact that CWhXkh]l_hkiekjXh[Wai ZIMBABWE there was no obvious epidemic in 8Wji\ekdZm_j^l_hki humans or other animals in the
‹ If we don’t change our ways, we’re going to be in the funeral parlours… because we’re all going to be fat and dead.› Steve Holland, chairman of Mississippi’s public health committee, on the latest survey showing that the state is the fattest in the US, with more than 30 per cent of its adults now considered obese (The Washington Post, 28 August)
‹ Maybe we couldn’t go to Tahiti, Bermuda or Africa. But we had something nobody else had – our very own toxic waste dump.›
Marburg virus found in fruit bats
Andrea Stierle, a biologist at the University of Montana, on hopes that microorganisms living in Berkeley Pit lake, in Butte, Montana, could be used to treat cancer. The lake holds 140 billion litres of contaminated water (Wired, 21 August)
DEBORA MACKENZIE
‹ It was so cool, like running on air. You couldn’t feel it.›
“Ebola and Marburg may have diverged as one spread among free-living fruit bats, the other among cave dwellers” primates, and the first time it has been found in Gabon, suggesting that Marburg may be more widespread than previously thought. Meanwhile a team of scientists is testing bats in a mine in Uganda for Marburg, after two miners there contracted the disease last month and one died. Marburg and its close relative 14 | NewScientist | 1 September 2007
Tom Wood, age 12, on the 2.5-metrehigh peaks of froth whipped up in the sea at Yamba, New South Wales, Australia, by cyclonic winds (The Times, London, 28 August)
‹ She loves running. I do not impose my will on her.› Zhang Jianmin, father of 8-year-old Zhang Huimin, who has arrived in Beijing, China, after running an average of 65 kilometres per day for 55 days – a total of 3560 kilometres – to celebrate the 2008 Olympics. Zhang denies that the long run has damaged his daughter’s health (Reuters, 28 August)
‹ This is an immense ecological disaster. It’s a recipe to burn the whole country.›
SOURCE: PLoS ONE
MARBURG virus has a fearsome reputation. An outbreak in Angola in 2005 left more than 300 people dead and many more sick with the severe and highly contagious form of haemorrhagic fever it causes. Yet the animal that carries the virus and transmits it to humans has remained a mystery. Now researchers working in Gabon have found the virus in a cave-dwelling African fruit bat. This is the first time it has been found outside humans or other
Theodota Nantsou, conservation manager at WWF Greece, on how fires, suspected to have been started by arsonists, have destroyed 2.5 million hectares and 110 villages in the southern Peloponnese (The Guardian, London, 28 August)
www.newscientist.com