Meliandou is a small village of 31 houses.<\/p>\n
It sits deep within the Guinean forest region, surrounded by towering reeds and oil palm cultivations – these are believed to have attracted the fruit bats carrying the virus passed on to Emile.<\/p>\n
During their four-week field trip in April 2014, Dr Fabian Leendertz and colleagues found a large tree stump situated about 50m from Emile’s home.<\/p>\n
Villagers reported that children used to play frequently in the hollow tree.<\/p>\n
Emile – who died of Ebola in December 2013 – used to play there, according to his friends.<\/p>\n
The villagers said that the tree burned on March 24, 2014 and that once the tree caught fire, there issued a “rain of bats”.<\/p>\n
A large number of these insectivorous free-tailed bats – Mops condylurus in Latin – were collected by the villagers for food, but disposed of the next day after a government-led ban on bushmeat consumption was announced.<\/p>\n
While bushmeat is thought to be a possible source of Ebola, the scientists believe it didn’t trigger the outbreak.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was Emile’s exposure to the bats and their droppings as he played with his friends in the hollowed tree.<\/p>\n
Pest control<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The scientists took and tested ash samples from the tree and found DNA traces that were a match for the animals.<\/p>\n While they were unable to test any of the bushmeat that the villagers had disposed of, they captured and tested any living bats they could find in and around Meliandou.<\/p>\n No Ebola could be detected in any of these hundred or so animals, however.<\/p>\n But previous tests show this species of bat can carry Ebola.<\/p>\n Dr Leendertz, from the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, and his colleagues say this must be a pretty rare occurrence though.<\/p>\n Dr Leendertz said: “That is also obvious when you think about how many tonnes of bat meat is consumed every year.<\/p>\n “If more bats carried the virus, we would see outbreaks all the time.”<\/p>\n He says it is vital to find out more about the bats.<\/p>\n “They have moved into human settlements. They do not just live in the trees but also under the roofs of houses in the villages.<\/p>\n “The Ebola virus must jump through colonies from bat to bat, so we need to know more.”<\/p>\n But culling the animals is not the answer.<\/p>\n “We need to find ways to live together with the wildlife. These bats catch insects and pests, such as mosquitoes. They can eat about a quarter of their body weight in insects a day.<\/p>\n “Killing them would not be a solution. You would have more malaria.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ebola victim who is believed to have triggered the current outbreak – a two-year-old boy called Emile Ouamouno from Guinea – may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of bats, say scientists. They made the connection on an expedition to the boy’s village, Meliandou. They took samples and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":78435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-78434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79986000\/gif\/_79986192_graphic-1.gif\")
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