Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Army are all currently screening hundreds of various African animal species in search of other vectors. In the meantime, the genetic code for Ebola-Zaire has been completely sequenced, and the code for Ebola- Reston is almost completed. (These gene orders reaffirm their independence as a family.)In the April 16, 1996 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., Anthony Sanchez and his colleagues at the CDC reported their progress in genetic analysis of the Ebola virus. It seemed to them that the most important gene in the virus was the glycoprotein gene, which manufactures proteins that lie on the surface of the virus and are believed to transport the virus into the host cell. Anthony Sanchez and his team had further analyzed the glycoprotein gene to reveal that filoviruses, besides destroying the cells they infect, might also kill their victims by overpowering the immune system. This could be one of the reasons why the Ebola virus is such a lethal pathogen. There have been comparisons between the HIV virus and the Ebola virus because of genetic and behavioral similarities, but research has proven that the Ebola virus has no association to the HIV virus in any way.Compared to other diseases like tuberculosis and hepatitis, the Ebola virus poses a rather limited threat to the public. It kills its victims so quickly that it cannot spread far. But this should not always be assumed, as pathogens have a frequent tendency to mutate, sometimes resulting in even deadlier versions.The 1990’s have seen monkeys being imported to the United States from the Philippines, and there have been several times when these imported monkeys have carried the Ebola-Reston virus. The most recent of these cases was in 1996, when two out of a hundred monkeys imported to Texas died from the virus and created panic amongst Texan citizens. Since then, the CDC has taken preventive measures by re-licensing imp...
