Fun facts about the Ebola virus

Apparently the statistic now is 4 months. Men who recover are told to not have sex or use a condom for 4 months as it can be spread even in recovered peoples semen. There have been cases in Africa of recovered people infecting partners months later.

 

TT have a serious point here. The African rainforest belt faces serious threats, with political instability making it hard enough for external NGOS such as WCS and ZSL) to operate there anyway. I fear that Ebola has the potential to derail a fair number of insitu conservation projects. Pandrillus and CERCOPAN spring to mind immediately.

 

Pandrillus is based in Nigeria, about 3,000 km away from the Ebola epicentre. This is about the same distance as that between Syria and the Czech Republic, yet I'm not sure that the campaign of Islamic State threatens the future of, say, Pilsen Zoo. Africa is a very large place, and it is important not to imagine that the entire continent has been struck by this disease.

 

Your admonition that Africa is a big place and the importance of not confounding Ebola's spread to the whole continent is good. Ebola was in Nigeria, but their relatively intact government allowed them to hopefully shut down the spread of the virus.

Nonetheless Ian's concern is on target about Liberia and the region.

I recently interviewed a botanist about the state of nature conservation in Liberia for a story. He was extremely pessimistic about the prospects for conserving much forest there, and this was before their economy and infrastructure were destroyed by the Ebola epidemic.

 

Conservative predictions are that in both countries where Ebola is more or less gone out of control, it threatens to destroy the very fabric of society. Virologists who modeled the disease and made projections are looking at potentially 5 million people affected by the disease by 2015 in both Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 

Speaking of WCS, they had released a video about how they are using a new method to study the Ebola virus in wildlife.

 

I'm aware Africa is big, but its transport links with the outside world are vulnerable. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear, but if key workers can't fly in or out because of restrictions then that will have consequences.

 

More on the history of Ebola :
Ebola Is 50 Times Older Than Mankind. And That Could Be the Key to Stopping It. - The Daily Beast

 

The Ebola threat for gorillas

The Ebola threat for gorillas - Dr Peter Walsh, University of Cambridge - The Naked Scientists