Ebola Cave (Kitum Cave)

The Hot Zone #1
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Ebola Virus Presentation Part One
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The Kitum cave is more recently famous for a very different sort of lifeform, a deadly virus. In 1980 and again in 1987 visitors to the cave contracted Marburg virus, a deadly virus very similar to Ebola. The cave Ebola and Marburg virus rose to notoriety when it was featured in bestseller "The Hot Zone." It is believed that the bats in the cave may carry the virus and that their powdered guano may act as the disease vector.
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A review from Kitum cave
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Visited this park in the year 2011, with a group of friends. For the adventure lovers, this is an ideal place. We toured the largest cave, Kitum. It was a bit scary at first due to the darkness and the millions of chanting bats at the entrance. But it was fun as we toured the inside chambers. Elephants visit these sites at night for salt lick, one would wonder how they make it.. but it's nature.
Security is provided so no need to worry. Got to see numerous pure springs right at their sources. A number of animals were also sighted on the way, but the highlight was the adventure in the caves.
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(Tours are offered at Mount Elgon National Park of the Kitum Cave. The above person toured the cave where bats carry the virus and are immune to it. Their powdered and liquid guano is inside the Kitum Cave just waiting for stupid people to be exposed to a couple of deadly viruses.

"Millions of bats at the entrance",
"Security is provided so no need to worry") Story Reports
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The Hot Zone Questions
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Usually on the 7th day of being exposed to Ebola, the victim develops a severe headache. After that, the victim can get abdominal pain, fever, bloody vomit, maculopapular rash, malaise, joint and muscle pain, inflammation of pharynx, coagulopathy, chest pain, dry and sore throat, hemorrhagic diathesis, diarrhia, vomiting. The incubation period is generally from 3-18 days, however it ranges from 2 to 21 days.

As soon as an individual is infected with Ebola, the virus starts making copies of itself. A headache usually develops on the 7th day after coming into contact with the virus, and from there the symptoms get worse. The victim may spike a fever, and begin to vomit uncontrollably. The victim's face becomes a yellow mask, and the eyes turn bright red. The virus is trying to transform the body into itself, the result being liquefying flesh and virus. The victim may start vomiting black vomit, which is actually a hemorrhage.

The victim's blood begins to clot, which cut off the blood supply in most parts of the body. Eventually the clotting factors become used up, and the blood becomes clotless. The victim begins to bleed from every opening in their body. The victims usually die of hypovolemic shock or organ failure.

Kitum Cave is significant because in the 1980's two visitors to the cave contracted EBOLA Marburg virus; Charles Monet and a fifteen year old boy.

A hot virus is a lethally infective virus. Examples of hot viruses include Ebola and Marburg.

One way to stop a virus is to isolate everyone with the virus and let them die out, or cure them. Another would be to vaccinate the population at risk. The third is to eliminate the vector.

Hot Zone Questions
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Marburg Virus

Marburg was the first filiovirus discovered. The Marbug virus has similar symptoms to Ebola, but the chance of surving an infection of Marbug virus is higher.
First infected: Klaus F. He cared for the monkey in the Behring Works factory and broke with the virus on August 8, 1967 and died two weeks later.
Date discovered: During the summer of 1967

Noted outbreaks:

Marburg Germany, in a factory called Behring Works, was the first to break out with Marburg, around the summer of 1967. The factory works on producing serums and vaccines using kidney cells from African green monkeys, normally shipped in from Uganda.

Kitum Cave: Monet and Peter Cardinal died of Marburg shortly after visiting the cave.
Originated in: Sub-Saharan Africa
Incubation Period: On average- seven days.
Casultly rates: One in four.

Noted victims:

Charles Monet, a French expatriate who lived in western Kenya. He became terribly sick on Jan. 8, 1980, seven days after a visit at Kitum cave on Mount Elgon. Monet went to Nairobi Hospital for treatment. He died quickly after vomitting into Dr. Shem Musoke's face.

Musoke developed symptoms for the virus nine days after treating Monet. After diagnosis was difficult for Musoke, he went under Silverstein's care. Silverstein sent Musoke's blood serum to the National Institute of Virology in Sandringham, South Africa, and to the centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia, USA. The serum tested positive for Marburg.

Peter Cardinal was a Danish boy visiting his parents in Kenya in the summer of 1987, when he dies of the Marburg virus. The army keeps a strain of Marburg named after him in its freezers, because he died of Marburg after visiting Kitum cave, like Monet.Gene Johnson had a hot zone set up there in hopes of finding the virus's host.

Other people involved:

Mr. Jones, he was an inspector for the monkeys shipped from Entebbe. He said most the monkeys weren't being killed, but sent to Lake Victoria, a focus for monkey viruses. The monkeys were trapped on the Sese islands, and were being continuessly shipped.

Gene Johnson is a civilian virus hunter working for the Army. Specialist in Ebola. In the spring of 1988, following the death of Peter Cardinal, he leads an Army expedition to Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon. He tried finding the virus host, but had no luck and ended up saving a ton of gear. "Chance favors the prepared mind" The Kitum cave equipment would later come in handy for the Ebola Reston strain that breaks out in a Reston monkey house in Virginia. He was the cheif of logistics and safety for the Reston biohazard operation.

Strains studied: Musoke, Peter Cardinal

Sisters: Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Reston

Carriers of the disease: Monkeys. The ones sent to Germany came from locations all over central Uganda. The monkeys had been shipped from Entebbe, an export facility.

Exact Source: Unknown.....(CIA)

How it is transmitted: Believed to be passed on when bodily fluid, or excretions of an infected person come in contact with another person or monkey, usually by an opening, as in eyes or mouth, or mouth cuts and intimate forms of contact.
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The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus