The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people and was the deadliest outbreak since the discovery of the virus in 1976.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people and was the deadliest outbreak since the discovery of the virus in 1976.
A New England Journal of Medicine study linked the start of the outbreak to a two-year-old in Meliandou, a remote village in Guinea, a country that had never before seen a case of Ebola. The type of virus was identified as the deadliest strain, found in Zaire—a country thousands of miles away.
How did it get there? The likeliest answer: bats.
A growing number of researchers are exploring the ecological dimensions that contribute to outbreaks of zoonotic diseases like Ebola that spill over from animal carriers to human populations. According to a report published by the Pulitzer Center, zoonotic diseases account for 60 percent of the roughly 400 emerging infectious diseases that have been identified since 1940. There is evidence that human activities such as deforestation are impacting animal migratory patterns as the search for resources is bringing animals into closer contact with humans.
Read more at Lehigh University
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