the ebola reservoir is often described as a consequence of latent virus in fruit bats crossing over to human infectivity
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biaf050/8116758
Fruit bats live across Africa, Asia, and Oceania, meaning:
"The presence of these animals alone does not explain Ebola outbreaks"
the one thing that ebola outbreaks all have in common: heavy industry and mineral mining
DRC: Major global producer of cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold; outbreaks have occurred in/near mining areas (e.g., gold mining villages).
Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone: Significant iron ore, gold, diamonds, bauxite; mining was impacted but continued during the 2014โ2016 outbreak.
Gabon, Republic of the Congo: Oil, manganese, gold, timber-related extraction; historical gold-mining camp outbreaks.
Uganda: Gold, copper mining.
South Sudan: Gold, copper, iron ore, limestone
Ivory Coast: Gold (major producer), diamonds, manganese, bauxite, nickel
Every single place that has experienced an โEbolaโ outbreak is also an area of heavy mining and exploitation of raw earth materials
All of these metal extractive processes share arsenic use and release in common. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning include every sign and symptom present in "ebola"
I think it is very likely that if arsenic levels were routinely tested in ebola patients, a strong correlation would begin to emerge.
