THE Ebola virus that is wiping out gorillas and chimpanzees could become even harder to stop. It now appears there are at least two strains of the so-called Ebola Zaire virus, not one as previously thought, and they can swap genes between them – a rare ability that will make it harder to develop vaccines to fight them.
The Ebola virus causes fever and haemorrhage and kills up to 90 per cent of people who catch it. Since its discovery in 1976, it has spread across Africa, probably carried by bats. An outbreak which started in August in the Democratic Republic…
