Emerging Infectious Diseases (Dec 2007)

Studies of Reservoir Hosts for Marburg Virus

  • Robert Swanepoel,
  • Sheilagh B. Smit,
  • Pierre E. Rollin,
  • Pierre Formenty,
  • Patricia A. Leman,
  • Alan Kemp,
  • Felicity J. Burt,
  • Antoinette A. Grobbelaar,
  • Janice Croft,
  • Daniel G. Bausch,
  • Hervé Zeller,
  • Herwig Leirs,
  • L.E.O. Braack,
  • Modeste L. Libande,
  • Sherif Zaki,
  • Stuart T. Nichol,
  • Thomas G. Ksiazek,
  • Janusz T. Paweska

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1312.071115
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 12
pp. 1847 – 1851

Abstract

Read online

To determine reservoir hosts for Marburg virus (MARV), we examined the fauna of a mine in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The mine was associated with a protracted outbreak of Marburg hemorrhagic fever during 1998–2000. We found MARV nucleic acid in 12 bats, comprising 3.0%–3.6% of 2 species of insectivorous bat and 1 species of fruit bat. We found antibody to the virus in the serum of 9.7% of 1 of the insectivorous species and in 20.5% of the fruit bat species, but attempts to isolate virus were unsuccessful.

Keywords