Ebola-Reston

In 1989 an epidemic of another Ebola virus occurred in a primate centre in the USA in Reston, a town near Washington D.C. A number of people were infected but without any illness both in Reston (4) and in the Philippines (12) where the monkeys came from. Unlike the case of Ebola-Zaire, there were arguments here for aerogenic transmission. Research was complicated by the fact that another haemorrhagic fever virus epidemic was taking place at the same time among the monkeys (Simian Haemorrhagic Fever Virus). The Ebola-Reston virus also emerged in 1992 in Siena, Italy. Again there was a connection with monkeys imported from the Philippines. In March and April 1996 too there were a few cases of Ebola-Reston in monkeys imported from the Philippines (Macaca fascicularis) in the Texas Primate Breeding Center, Alice, Texas. These animals were then still in the obligatory quarantine period (all monkeys imported into the USA have to be kept in isolation for a time after their arrival there). In January 1997 Ebola-Reston infections were confirmed in monkeys in the Ferlite Scientific Breeding Centre in the Philippines, the same centre where a similar outbreak had occurred in 1989. There were no human cases.

Category: Medical Subject Notes , Medicine Notes