Now, researchers are watching 50 more monkeys from the same shipment from the Philippines. Eight of the monkeys’ handlers are also under observation. Ebola Reston shouldn’t harm them, but officials are “taking every precaution,” says Dr. David Smith, Texas commissioner of Health.
Ebola Zaire is thought to be transmitted only by contact with bodily fluids–ample in the final “bleed out” stage. But in Texas, the monkeys were separated, and Reston apparently spread like the flu. “That’s the ultimate scare, of course,” says Bob Howard, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “an Ebola that kills [humans] like Zaire but that infects through airborne routes.” Fortunately, there’s no sign of a disease that does that.
Even if an airborne version of Ebola Zaire did turn up, it wouldn’t get very far. The virus is just too vicious–it typically kills its hosts before they get a chance to pass it on, and it doesn’t last long outside a body. Good news for humans; cold comfort for the monkeys.
