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CSU Researcher Thinks Ebola Outbreak Could Be Related To Bats

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) - Could the massive Ebola outbreak be linked to bats? A researcher at Colorado State University thinks so.

Bats spread a number of viruses, including rabies, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). There are around 1,200 species of bats and three species of fruit bats in West Africa. Scientists wonder if they are at the root of the Ebola outbreak.

"It's disgusting disease," said Charles Calisher, Professor Emeritus in Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at CSU.

Calisher understands the horror of Ebola. He's written a book on the history of important viruses, and Ebola is one of them.

"If you have an opening, you bleed from it," he said.

And Calisher knows bats.

"You can have bats this big (inches) or bats with 6-foot wing spreads."

Calisher has worked 27 years for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Wherever you look you find bats, and you find viruses in the bats," he said.

In West Africa, where the worst outbreak ever is raging, some people eat bats.

"Somewhere a bat probably was involved."

Right now Calisher says Americans shouldn't live in fear of Ebola.

"If you start seeing cases in Chicago, then Milwaukee or New York or Boston, or some little town in South Dakota, I'd be scared to death," he said. "But we're not seeing that and were probably not going to see that."

The professor would like to see vaccines produced against all bad viruses, but his theory is they usually don't affect the right people.

"If it affected everybody who made $100,000 or more there'd be a vaccine next week."

Calisher says he hopes the epidemic will scare people enough to stop cutting budgets for the CDC. He's surprised how many hospitals are geared up to deal with Ebola, but he thinks more needs to be done.

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