Dear Judith Linn:
I liked your common sense approach in your last posting. Perhaps I should
email you directly but I thought that this was a good subject for discussion.
About a year ago when I saw a documentary on the TV regarding AIDS and
Ebola, there was the comment that the number of viral threats to humans is
probably related to the amount of biodiversity in a region. Hence the tropics
with thousands of different unique hosts, sometimes within an acre, are likely
to have more viral agents than sparse cooler climes. It is only logical that
central Africa, the Amazon and tropical Southeast Asia have several existing
and potential threats.
Regarding AIDS, I have heard 2 theories. One is the ingestion of
contaminated monkey meat, the other are the WHO malaria trials where monkey
blood was transferred to natives to see if passive immunity could protect
them.
Regarding Ebola, the natural host has yet to be found. Anyone know if
there are any plant viruses that resemble Ebola? Brucella is related to plant
pathogens and some time ago it did a "species jump".
Take care....John
