Despite the fact that as an Austinite I’m a few short hours away from Dallas, TX, I’ve managed to remain pretty calm and optimistic about the whole Ebola thing. The virus seems to have been contained in Nigeria and Senegal, and if those two countries can do it, then the US can do it, wherever it crops up.
But then I woke up at 6am this morning thinking, “What if there was an Ebola outbreak in Juarez, Mexico?” And what if people start fleeing in my direction? Okay, that’s not productive. I shook it off and got back to sleep. All was fine until a little while ago, when I was lurking the same surivalistboards.com Ebola thread that the rest of the country, including the media, seems to be lurking as well, and I came across this post about Ebola and man’s best friend.
The post excerpts a study from the CDC’s website [PDF] called “Ebola Virus Antibody Prevalence in Dogs and Human Risk,” the point of which is that there is some evidence that dogs can contract Ebola and spread it while remaining completely asymptomatic.
“This study suggests that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus and that the putative infection is asymptomatic.”
h/t Tom R
I read a report stating this fact recently. The report also stated that Africans eat a lot of dog meat, that Ebola vitcims are often buried in shallow graves an dug up by hungry dogs, that dogs DO pass on the Ebola virus.