Ebola is a plague that haunts the world, especially West Africa. Recent data owned by the World Health Organization, WHO, said that 7,700 people had died recorded more than 20,000 cases. The big question, how the beginning of the deadly virus spread?
Reporting from National Geographic on Saturday (01/03/2015), Ebola was first discovered in Southeast Guinea in December 2013 ago.
In March 2014, when the Ebola began to spread, Fabian Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, formed a multidisciplinary research team from the disciplines of ecology, veterinarians and anthropologists to examine the beginning of the spread of Ebola.
The research team then examined the first large animals such as monkeys and chimpanzees. From the research, it is known that some large animals there are also some died from Ebola.
This suggests that Ebola may not spread to humans through animals, but of something else and directly to humans.
The team then focused research in a village called Méliandou, Guinea. In the village was the beginning of this virus originated.
A boy, Emile Ouamouno, was the first victim died of this virus. After Emile died, respectively mother, sister and grandmother died.
The absence of adult men who died in the first wave of Ebola outbreak showed that wild animals are usually hunted not the Ebola virus intermediaries.
For 8 days in Méliandou, a team led by the Leendertz collect data in the form of the testimony of local people, including mengupulkan data about fruit bats, which is quite a lot of the population.
From the data it appears dikumppulkan new hypothesis, that intermediary Ebola virus is a fruit bat. Hypothesis, humans exposed to Ebola after eating the fruit that has been bitten by bats.
Nevertheless, this hypothesis is not strong enough given the fruit bats do not live near human settlements.
However, another hypothesis arises because there is a small bat perched on the roof of a house or a tree hole and do not belong to the species of fruit bat. These bats eat fruit but do not eat insects. Residents call lolibelo.
From interviews with local people, known to many children there who make lolibelo as game animals for baking.
In fact, in the village there is one tree hole is a favorite of children in play and bake lolibelo hunted them.
Research was finally reached on the most recent hypothesis, namely bats lolibelo who mediates the Ebola virus. Nevertheless, this hypothesis is still verifiable until today, until researchers really know the relationship between the Ebola virus with lolibelo.
