An outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever that began in mid-March in Guinea has killed 86 people in the country, as of April 4. 143 suspected or confirmed cases have been reported in Guinea, and two people in Liberia tested positive for the infection. Suspected cases have also been reported in Sierra Leone and Mali.“All of the confirmed and suspected cases reported by Liberia and Sierra Leone had travelled to Guinea before illness onset”, according to WHO. Senegal has decided to close its border with Guinea. Most of the cases in Guinea are in three districts in the remote southeast forest region—Guekedou, Macenta, and Kissidougou. The outbreak last week spread to the capital Conakry, where five cases (four laboratory confirmed) were reported. The government has banned bat soup, a local delicacy, because bats are a natural reservoir for the virus.“The source of the outbreak is currently unknown. Investigations are ongoing to determine this”, says Collins Boakye-Agyemang (WHO Regional Office).“However, it may be related to human interaction with sick nonhuman primates or fruit bats in the forested areas where initial cases were reported”, he told TLID.“Results from sequencing done by CIRI Lyon showed homology of 98% with Zaire Ebola virus last reported in 2009 in Kasai-Occidental Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo”, he adds.“Zaire Ebola virus had only previously been detected in central Africa, as far west as Gabon and Republic of Congo”, says Craig Manning (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, GA, USA).“Recent ecological, serological, and molecular studies implicate bats as potential hosts of filoviruses, but much works remains to be done to confirm any specific bat species as the particular host of Zaire Ebola virus strain in Guinea”, he says.

Alexander Bukreyev (Galveston National Laboratory, TX, USA) says:“[In the current outbreak], the initial infection of a human could result from consumption of bat’s meat or from a contact with bat’s excretions. Most likely the initial infection from bat triggered multiple cycles of human-tohuman transmission of the virus.”“We aren’t sure how Ebola virus spreads in the wild, but there are some indications that it can travel for short distances through the air”, says Benjamin Neuman (University of Reading, UK).“The virus does not spread very well between people—there are often dozens of people who have contact with an infected person for every one that becomes infected. When it does spread, it is usually through cont act with contaminated body fluids.”