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muriel_volestrangler

(101,321 posts)
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 07:47 PM Dec 2014

First Ebola boy likely infected by playing in bat tree

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.
...
Emile - who died of Ebola in December 2013 - used to play there, according to his friends.

The villagers said that the tree burned on March 24, 2014 and that once the tree caught fire, there issued a "rain of bats".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30632453

The article points out that killing the bats would not be a solution - they eat mosquitoes that spread malaria.
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