Gonzalez J P, Herbreteau V, Morvan J, Leroy E M
Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), Unité de recherche 178.
Bull Soc Pathol Exot. 2005 Sep;98(3):210-7.
Nearly thirty years after the first epidemics, Ebola virus (EBOV) remains hardly described, its transmission unclear and its reservoir elusive. Soon after the Ebola fever outbreak and virus discovery in 1976 and in order to investigate the distribution of EBOV in Central Africa, several countries including a range of ecological zones were investigated in the early 1980s, using extensive survey: Central African Republic (CAR), Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Since 1992, ELISA antibody test along with a RT-PCR have been used to detect specific virus antibodies and characterize viral RNA. The widely separated geographic locations of outbreaks have suggested that the reservoir and the transmission cycle of EBOV are probably closely associated with the rain forest ecosystem, what is supported by the distribution of antibodies. The fact that outbreaks seldom occur suggests the presence of a rare or ecologically isolated animal reservoir having few contacts with humans and non-human primates. However various serological investigations showed a high prevalence in humans without any pathology reported. This suggests a circulation of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains as well as more frequent contacts with man than expected, and could partially explain fifteen years of Ebola fever silence between the emergence and re-emergence of Ebola virus in the Congolese basin. Nowadays, largely enlightened by the study of recent epizootic and epidemic manifestations of EBOV in Gabon and neighboring countries, EBOV natural history starts to be understood as for the fundamentals of epizootic in non-human primates and chains of transmission.
在首次疫情爆发近三十年后，埃博拉病毒（EBOV）仍鲜为人知，其传播途径不明，宿主也难以捉摸。1976年埃博拉热疫情爆发并发现该病毒后不久，为了调查EBOV在中非的分布情况，20世纪80年代初对包括一系列生态区在内的几个国家进行了广泛调查：中非共和国（CAR）、喀麦隆、乍得、刚果、加蓬和赤道几内亚。自1992年以来，酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA）抗体检测以及逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）已被用于检测特定病毒抗体并对病毒RNA进行特征分析。疫情爆发地点分布广泛，这表明EBOV的宿主和传播周期可能与雨林生态系统密切相关，抗体分布情况也支持了这一点。疫情很少发生这一事实表明存在一种与人类和非人类灵长类动物接触较少的稀有或生态隔离的动物宿主。然而，各种血清学调查显示，在未报告任何病理情况的人群中患病率很高。这表明致病和非致病菌株都在传播，而且与人类的接触比预期更频繁，这可以部分解释刚果盆地埃博拉病毒出现和再次出现之间长达十五年的埃博拉热沉寂期。如今，在对加蓬及周边国家近期EBOV动物疫情和疫情表现的研究的很大启发下，EBOV的自然史以及非人类灵长类动物的动物疫情基本情况和传播链开始被人们所了解。
