Scientists trace first Ebola case to fruit bats

The current outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease has been traced to fruit bats. That is the submission of a group of scientists who visited Meliandou, a small village in Guinea where the first case was recorded.

According to the World Health Organisation, there has been more than 20,000 cases with 7,693 deaths in the latest outbreak.

 Emile Ouamouno, a two-year-old infant, who died of the virus in December 2013, was believed to have triggered the latest outbreak.

Results from the research published in EMBO Molecular Medicine on Tuesday showed that the boy must have contracted the virus while playing in the stump of a tree close to his house.


The scientists, who were led on a four-week trip by Dr. Fabian Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, were told by villagers that a colony of fruit bats escaped from the tree when it got burnt in April 2014.

Some of the bats were captured by the villagers and used as bush meat but disposed of after the government announced a ban on bush meat consumption.

Ash samples collected from the tree by the scientists showed a DNA match for the animals.

However, living fruits bats in the area that were tested showed no sign of the virus.

The report stated that “a single zoonotic transmission event’’ might have been responsible for the outbreak. The scientists reasoned that Emile “may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of insectivorous free-tailed bats.’’

However, the scientists concluded that the findings were not enough to launch a campaign against the bats.

“If more bats carried the virus, we would see outbreaks all the time. The Ebola virus must jump through colonies from bat to bat, so we need to know more. We need to find ways to live together with the wildlife.’’

Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, a former Vice Chancellor, University of Uyo, Calabar, Prof. Eyo Okon, called for more research work into the subject.

Okon, who is a professor of Zoology, said he had done an extensive research on bats but had not come across a single case of the virus.

“There is need for more research but it is just presumptuous. Bats have been in Ife even before the town was developed and there has not been a single case of Ebola. If what they are saying is true, then everybody here, maybe except me, would have been infected. I have worked on every part of a bat, handling it with hands and there were no mishaps,’’ he said.