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Le virus Ebola : données écologiques Volume 1, hors-série 1, Hors série n°1, Janvier - Février 1997

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Service de neurovirologie, Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, Centre de recherches du Service de santé des Armées, DSV/DRM, BP 6, 92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses Cedex

The Ebola virus appears in the press as a prototype of the emerging viruses. If it presents a high infectious risk due to the contact with patients, its epidemic potential is in fact limited and easily controllable. The human behaviour and therefore local customs have played a great role in the appearance but also in the control of the known outbreaks. The main epidemic mechanism is the nosocomial transmission when rules of hygiene are forgotten. The main question related to this virus is the nature of its reservoir. The discovery in Ivory Coast of a new strain responsible for two epidemics in a troop of chimpanzees has permitted to limit the time and space for captures to discover this reservoir. The analysis of the surveillance data of these monkeys collected daily allows to suppose that the reservoir circulates in the canopy of the Tai Forest and that its abundance presents an important cyclic variation. The similarity in the periods of beginning of the last epidemics strengthens this hypothesis.