Bats congregate in the Bat Cave in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda on August 24, 2018. CDC scientists placed GPS devices bats from the cave to determine flight patterns and how they transmit Marburg virus to humans.

Bonnie Jo Mount / The Washington Post via Getty Images file</s>Marburg virus, a deadly cousin of Ebola virus, has been found for the first time in bats in west Africa, U.S. researchers said Thursday.

The discovery means Marburg is a threat in west Africa — where a giant epidemic of Ebola infected 28,000 people and killed 11,000 of them in 2014-2016. The region is crisscrossed by roads and paths and people travel across borders to towns and cities, making it easier to spread outbreaks of infectious disease. Usually outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg are in isolated regions and have been less likely to spread.

The knowledge that Marburg lives in bats in Sierra Leone can help officials prepare for potential outbreaks, the researchers said.

“Five Egyptian rousette fruit bats tested positive for active Marburg virus infection. Scientists caught the bats separately at locations in three health districts: Moyamba, Koinadugu and Kono,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which led one of the expeditions that found the infected bats, said in a statement.

“There have been no reported cases of people sick with Marburg in Sierra Leone, but the virus’s presence in bats means people nearby could be at risk for contracting Marburg virus. Marburg virus is a cousin to Ebola virus that causes a similar, often fatal disease in people.”

Both Marburg and Ebola are terrifying because, depending on the strain and availability of medical help, they kill as many as 90 percent of victims. They can cause a hemorrhagic fever that causes internal and external bleeding, as well as severe diarrhea and vomiting that lead to shock.

The Egyptian fruit bat has been known to carry Marburg. It’s a reservoir, meaning the animals can carry and spread a virus, but it doesn’t make them sick. Bats are reservoirs for many viruses, including Marburg, rabies and middle east respiratory syndrome virus or MERS.

“We have known for a long time that rousette bats, which carry Marburg virus in other parts of Africa, also live in West Africa. So it’s not surprising that we’d find the virus in bats there,” said ecologist Jonathan Towner, who led the CDC team. “This discovery is an excellent example of how our work can identify a threat and help us warn people of the risk before they get sick.”

Three people died in an outbreak of Marburg in Uganda a year ago. In 2005, a big outbreak of Marburg in Angola killed 90 percent of the 252 people infected.

There’s a large cave full of fruit bats in Uganda where people, including tourists, have caught Marburg. “In eastern and central Africa, these bats can roost in colonies of more than 100,000 animals. However, the colonies of Egyptian fruit bats identified in Sierra Leone so far have been much smaller, which may explain why there have not been any known Marburg virus disease outbreaks in this country,” the CDC said in a statement.

Bats can spread viruses by biting people, but their saliva and guano can also spread the viruses — for instance, when they forage on fruit that people also gather and eat. People can catch viruses when they hunt and eat bats, as well.

Marburg’s relative, Ebola, is more common and may also be spread by bats. The Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa is now fighting a very big outbreak of Ebola. At least 542 people have been infected in the outbreak and 319 have died, the country’s health ministry says. At least 50,000 people have been vaccinated against the virus but civil war has made it difficult for health workers to do their jobs. The virus has also spread in towns, making it hard to contain.</s>Marburg virus, a deadly cousin of Ebola virus, has been found for the first time in bats in west Africa, U.S. researchers said Thursday.

The discovery means Marburg is a threat in west Africa — where a giant epidemic of Ebola infected 28,000 people and killed 11,000 of them in 2014-2016. The region is crisscrossed by roads and paths and people travel across borders to towns and cities, making it easier to spread outbreaks of infectious disease. Usually outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg are in isolated regions and have been less likely to spread.

The knowledge that Marburg lives in bats in Sierra Leone can help officials prepare for potential outbreaks, the researchers said.

“Five Egyptian rousette fruit bats tested positive for active Marburg virus infection. Scientists caught the bats separately at locations in three health districts: Moyamba, Koinadugu and Kono,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which led one of the expeditions that found the infected bats, said in a statement.

“There have been no reported cases of people sick with Marburg in Sierra Leone, but the virus’s presence in bats means people nearby could be at risk for contracting Marburg virus. Marburg virus is a cousin to Ebola virus that causes a similar, often fatal disease in people.”

Both Marburg and Ebola are terrifying because, depending on the strain and availability of medical help, they kill as many as 90 percent of victims. They can cause a hemorrhagic fever that causes internal and external bleeding, as well as severe diarrhea and vomiting that lead to shock.

The Egyptian fruit bat has been known to carry Marburg. It’s a reservoir, meaning the animals can carry and spread a virus, but it doesn’t make them sick. Bats are reservoirs for many viruses, including Marburg, rabies and middle east respiratory syndrome virus or MERS.

“We have known for a long time that rousette bats, which carry Marburg virus in other parts of Africa, also live in West Africa. So it’s not surprising that we’d find the virus in bats there,” said ecologist Jonathan Towner, who led the CDC team. “This discovery is an excellent example of how our work can identify a threat and help us warn people of the risk before they get sick.”

Three people died in an outbreak of Marburg in Uganda a year ago. In 2005, a big outbreak of Marburg in Angola killed 90 percent of the 252 people infected.

There’s a large cave full of fruit bats in Uganda where people, including tourists, have caught Marburg. “In eastern and central Africa, these bats can roost in colonies of more than 100,000 animals. However, the colonies of Egyptian fruit bats identified in Sierra Leone so far have been much smaller, which may explain why there have not been any known Marburg virus disease outbreaks in this country,” the CDC said in a statement.

Bats can spread viruses by biting people, but their saliva and guano can also spread the viruses — for instance, when they forage on fruit that people also gather and eat. People can catch viruses when they hunt and eat bats, as well.

Marburg’s relative, Ebola, is more common and may also be spread by bats. The Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa is now fighting a very big outbreak of Ebola. At least 542 people have been infected in the outbreak and 319 have died, the country’s health ministry says. At least 50,000 people have been vaccinated against the virus but civil war has made it difficult for health workers to do their jobs. The virus has also spread in towns, making it hard to contain.</s>Scientists have discovered the deadly Marburg virus in fruit bats in Sierra Leone, the first time this cousin of Ebola has been found in West Africa. There have been no reported cases of people or animals with active infections. But the pathogen’s presence in the bats raises the potential for it to infect humans in a new region more than a thousand miles from previously known outbreaks.

There have been a dozen known Marburg virus outbreaks in other parts of Africa, most recently in Uganda in 2017. Like Ebola, Marburg virus initially infects people through contact with wild animals. It can then spread person to person through contact with bodily fluids. It kills up to 9 in 10 of its victims, sometimes within a week.

The discovery was made by two teams of U.S. researchers and their partners in Sierra Leone. One was led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Njala University, the other was led by the University of California at Davis and the University of Makeni.

The virus was found in Egyptian fruit bats, which are the natural reservoir for Marburg. That means the virus can live and grow inside the bats without harming the animals, and can be passed on to humans or other animals through bat saliva, urine or feces. The bats live in caves or underground mines throughout much of Africa and parts of the Middle East and southwest Asia.

Marburg virus has been detected in Egyptian fruit bats caught in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also Kenya, South Africa and Gabon. But to find it in fruit bats in Sierra Leone — more than 1,600 miles from Gabon, the “closest dot on the map” of countries where the virus had previously been detected — provides scientists much more information about the potential viral landscape, said Brian Bird, a virologist and bat expert at UC Davis.

For a country like Sierra Leone that was devastated by Ebola, “this finding of a very dangerous pathogen on a par with Ebola can put them ahead of the game, they can take proactive steps” to warn communities about its hazards, said Jonathan Towner, a CDC ecologist who led the CDC team. Sierra Leone was among the three West African countries ravaged by the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people.

Bats are commonly hunted for food across Africa. Public health messages can warn people against eating bushmeat, avoid direct contact with bats as well as fruit that may have been nibbled on by the animals. Mining companies also need to be aware of potential risks if these fruit bats live in underground shafts, the scientists said.

U.S. officials are so concerned about Marburg becoming a global threat that Towner and experts from CDC and Uganda recently traveled to a bat cave deep inside a Ugandan forest to put GPS trackers on Egyptian fruit bats to see where they fly each night. They hope that information will help better predict areas most at risk and prevent future outbreaks.

The two teams in Sierra Leone have been working independently to find the natural reservoir for the Ebola virus. Unlike Marburg, researchers still don’t know what animal or animals carry Ebola, much less how it spreads to people. After testing thousands of bats, they found five bats from three underground caves in Sierra Leone tested positive for active Marburg virus infection. The bats were caught last year and testing took place this year.

In eastern and central Africa, the bats can roost in colonies of more than 100,000 animals. But the colonies of Egyptian fruit bats identified in Sierra Leone so far have been much smaller, the scientists said, which may explain why there haven’t been any known Marburg virus outbreaks in that country.

Scientists don’t know whether Egyptian fruit bats in other parts of the world are also carrying the virus. They also don’t know how big a bat colony has to be to maintain the virus long-term, or whether other environmental factors play a role. For a virus to spill over into humans requires “a sequence of events that line up just right,” said Bird.

The largest and deadliest Marburg virus outbreak occurred in Angola in 2005. It killed 90 percent of the 252 people who were infected. Two of the four strains identified among the five Marburg-positive bats in Sierra Leone are genetically similar to the strain that caused the Angola outbreak.

These bats carry a virus as fearsome as Ebola. Scientists delve into their cave lair in hope of curbing the spread.

Virus hunters travel by boat to a remote jungle village in hunt for mysterious monkeypox</s>DAKAR (Reuters) - Scientists in Sierra Leone have found live bats infected with Marburg virus, a deadly hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola and so far undetected in West Africa, a U.S. government statement said on Thursday.

The African fruit bat is the reservoir host of the virus, which has caused at least 12 outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever on the continent.

Angola suffered the worst epidemic in 2005, when 90 percent of the 252 people infected in the southern African country died. The continent’s most recent outbreak killed three people in Uganda last year.

In a statement on Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said five Egyptian rousette fruit bats caught in Sierra Leone tested positive for the Marburg virus.

No human cases of the fever have so far been reported, although the presence of infected bats — who do not show obvious signs of the disease — increases the risk of contracting the virus.

“We have known for a long time that rousette bats, which carry Marburg virus in other parts of Africa, also live in West Africa. So it’s not surprising,” said CDC ecologist Jonathan Towner in the statement.

Symptoms and signs of Marburg include headache, vomiting blood, muscle pains and bleeding through various orifices. Transmission occurs through contact with infected body fluids and tissue, which bats shed when they feed on fruit.

Sierra Leone was hit by West Africa’s worst Ebola outbreak, which ran from 2013 and 2016 and killed at least 11,300 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.</s>NEW DELHI: The Union Health Ministry today said that bats cannot be ruled out as the primary source of Nipah outbreak, nearly two weeks after a central medical team told it that samples collected from bats in two Kerala districts, where 17 people have died of Nipah infection, tested negative.

The need for new tests to determine the source of Nipah outbreak deepens the mystery behind the spread of the virus.

On May 26, the medical team in its report to the ministry said samples collected from insectivorous bats in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts tested negative.

But Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey said today new samples of 55 fruit bats were collected two days ago and sent to National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune.

The test results of the fresh samples are awaited.

R R Gangakhedkar, head of Division of Epidemiology Communicable Diseases, Indian Council for Medical Research, said the previous samples were from insectivorous bats, which are not known to be Nipah carriers, and not from fruit bats.

Gangakhedkar said an NIV team has collected samples of 55 fruit bats two days ago.

The Nipah virus stays for a short duration in the body of fruit bats as their system is quite capable of fighting it. So even if a bat has been infected by virus earlier, their samples may test negative later.

"Thus, there is need for a larger sample for testing," he explained.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has suggested that samples of excreta of fruit bats be collected for testing.

MoS Choubey urged people not to panic as the infection has been contained.

The central medical team is examining the travel history of Mohammad Sabith, 26, the first person to die in the Moosa family that lost four members to the virus infection.

He had travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a helper, and returned to India sometime back.

The central medical team in its report last month had also ruled out pigs to be the primary source of the virus.

A total of 21 samples, including from seven species of bats, two species of pigs, one bovine and one caprine, were sent to National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal and National Institute of Virology in Pune.

These, included samples of bats found in the well near a house in Kerala's Perambra from where the initial death was reported.

Seventeen people - 14 in Kozhikode and 3 in Malappuram - have died due to Nipah virus so far.</s>The death toll from Ebola in Sierra Leone has doubled to at least 12 in a week, local health authorities said on Monday, deepening the spread of a disease that has killed over 200 people in Guinea and Liberia.

The mounting deaths in Sierra Leone, which had been spared cases for months after Ebola was confirmed in the region in March, underscore the challenges weak health systems face tackling one of the deadliest diseases on the planet.

Amara Jambai, Sierra Leone's Director of Disease Prevention and Control, said all the confirmed deaths in Sierra Leone were in the east, mainly in the Kailahun district on the border with Guinea.

"It is very difficult for us to ascertain community deaths at this moment, but the 12 deaths are the ones the hospital can definitely confirm to have died of Ebola," Jambai said.

Jambai added that there were now 42 confirmed cases of Ebola from 113 people tested and new cases had been recorded in the northern district of Kambia.

Ebola was confirmed in a remote corner of Guinea in March and then later spread to Guinea's distant capital, Conakry, and over the border into Liberia.

All suspected cases in Sierra Leone tested negative until last month and Jambai said that the disease was spreading as authorities are struggling to control the movement of people.

International medical experts have been dispatched to Sierra Leone but they face a combination of poor existing health systems and tensions among locals fueled by the lack of understanding over the disease.

Two weeks ago, relatives removed an Ebola patient from a treatment center in Koindu as they doubted the disease existed.

Iron ore producers London Mining and African Minerals have imposed some restrictions on staff in Sierra Leone as a result of the outbreak but the firms say their output has so far not been affected.
U.S. researchers say that the Marburg virus has been found for the first time in West African bats, notably in Egyptian rousette fruit bats in Sierra Leone. Marburg is a "cousin" of the Ebola virus disease, which too may be spread by bats.