• Question: how did ebola start?

    Asked by maisieolivia to Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Sarah, Steven on 21 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      @maisieolivia nobody is really sure, but scientists think it might have transferred to humans via the bite of a fruit bat, which carries the virus.

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Ebola is one of the diseases that jumps from an animal to a human somehow – it doesn’t usually make the animal ill, but it can make humans very ill. Ebola isn’t very contagious, but it’s very very dangerous without good medical care.

    • Photo: Sarah Beasley

      Sarah Beasley answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      It’s weird, they think there was actually a ‘patient zero’, a child in a small village who was bitten by a fruit bat (maybe). It went from him, to his family and nurse, to the village midwife, to the village midwife’s family, to more deaths including some people who attended the funeral… It’s scary how it spreads!

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