Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine· cited by 450

Investigating the zoonotic origin of the West African Ebola epidemic

Almudena Marí Sáez; Sabrina Weiß; Kathrin Nowak; Vincent Lapeyre; Fee Zimmermann; Ariane Düx; Hjalmar S. Kühl; Moussa Kaba · 2014 · EMBO Molecular Medicine

WASTE classifies this as Negative / Null Result Report · AI classification, approximate

The study found no significant effect — useful as a negative control or null benchmark for your own design.

The finding, in one line

“We found no evidence for a concurrent outbreak in larger wildlife.”

Abstract

The severe Ebola virus disease epidemic occurring in West Africa stems from a single zoonotic transmission event to a 2-year-old boy in Meliandou, Guinea. We investigated the zoonotic origins of the epidemic using wildlife surveys, interviews, and molecular analyses of bat and environmental samples. We found no evidence for a concurrent outbreak in larger wildlife. Exposure to fruit bats is common in the region, but the index case may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of insectivorous free-tailed bats (Mops condylurus). Bats in this family have previously been dis

Abstract by Almudena Marí Sáez; Sabrina Weiß; Kathrin Nowak; Vincent Lapeyre; Fee Zimmermann; Ariane Düx; Hjalmar S. Kühl; Moussa Kaba, EMBO Molecular Medicine (2014) — licensed CC BY 4.0.

Read the full paper (open access)