:: As I understood it the 76 zaire epidemic was complicated by the burial
: rites of the people. Not to go too deeply into the details but the
: burials envolved the handling of bodily fluids and wastes in preparing
: the body. This provided an easy avenue for infection. Though I am by no
: means an expert on the customs, it is very possible that children under
: the age of 10 were prohibited from participating in the above. Also,
: another main avenue of infection was the local hospital whos resources
: were extremly poor. Often the same needles were used over and over again
: giving a nasty guy like ebola the perfect means for infecting a large
: number of people very quickly. I do not think that a childs immune
: system would be better able to handle the virus than an adults.
This was my understanding as well
Mitchell A. Blass, MD
::
