Human Interactions with Bat Populations in Bombali, Sierra Leone
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2020 EcoHealth Alliance
Original Contribution
Human Interactions with Bat Populations in Bombali, Sierra Leone Jason Euren,1 James Bangura,2 Aiah Gbakima,2 Marilyn Sinah,2 Sylvester Yonda,2 Christian E. Lange,3 David J. McIver,3 Matthew LeBreton,4 David Wolking,5 Corina Grigorescu Monagin,1 Brian Bird,5 and Karen Saylors1,6 1
Metabiota, Inc., 425 California St., Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104 Metabiota, Inc., Freetown, Sierra Leone 3 Metabiota, Inc., Nanaimo, Canada 4 Mosaic, Yaounde´, Cameroon 5 One Health Institute and Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 6 Labyrinth Global Health, St. Petersburg, FL 2
Abstract: Human contact with bats has been epidemiologically linked to several of the most recent Ebola outbreaks, including the 2014 West Africa epidemic and the 2007 Luebo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, outbreak. While fruit bats remain the likely primary reservoir for Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus), recent wildlife surveillance efforts have identified a new species of ebolavirus (Bombali ebolavirus) in microchiropteran insecteating bats in West and East Africa. Given the role of bats as potential Ebola reservoirs and sources of spillover into human populations, it is critically important to understand the circumstances and behaviors that bring human populations into close contact with bats. This study explores two sites in Bombali, Sierra Leone, where human populations have had close contact with microchiropteran bats via household infestations and fruit bats by hunting practices. Through interviews and focus groups, we identify the knowledge, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors that may potentially protect or expose individuals to zoonotic spillover through direct and indirect contact with bats. We also describe how this research was used to develop a risk reduction and outreach tool for living safely with bats. Keywords: Ebola, Bats, Zoonosis, Sierra Leone, Hunting, Infestation
INTRODUCTION
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PURPOSE
The West Africa epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) started in Guinea in December 2013 and resulted in a total of 28,646 reported cases and 11,323 deaths (World Health Organization 2016). The majority of transmissions oc-
Correspondence to: Jason Euren, e-mail: [email protected]
curred in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia; however the outbreak spread to seven other countries. Phylogenetic and epidemiological investigations traced the outbreak back to a 2-year-old child in Meliandou village, Gue´cke´dou, Guinea, and ecological and behavioral research implicated bats as the likely source of the outbreak (Baize et al. 2014; Saez et al. 2015). Given that bats have been repeatedly implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases including Ebola and Marburg virus diseases, an increasing number of
J. Euren et al.
investigations are being conducted to characterize the behaviors and contexts in which exposure to bats occur (Leroy et al. 2009; Anti et al. 2015; Saez et al. 2015; Ngade et al. 2017; Olivero et al. 2019). Su
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