Gallery: The Story Behind…
BATS WITH A DEADLY SECRET
On a recent trip to Uganda, Joel had a close brush with the deadly Marburg virus, a hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola.
He wrote about his experience on the National Geographic website:
“Exiting the cave at dusk, I had just taken off my respirator and glasses when I heard a tremendous noise above my head. I looked up, just for a second, and caught a dollop of fresh guano directly in my left eye. It was hot and it burned. I knew this was a “wet contact,” as bad as a bite.
Back at camp, I immediately called the Ugandan arm of the Centers for Disease Control to see what they knew, if anything, about those bats. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “You shouldn’t have gone in there,” he said. “Marburg circulates in that cave.”
Keywords
- albertine rift
- bats
- bunch
- disease reservoir
- Egyptian fruit bats
- Group
- hemorrhagic fever
- Jacana lodge
- mammals
- Maramagambo forest
- Marburg
- python cave
- Roost
- Rousettus aegyptiacus
- Uuganda
- zoonotic disease
This photo © Joel Sartore 2023. Image usage guidelines
