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Animal source of Ebola outbreak eludes scientists

Researchers try to pin down whether bats or bush meat passed virus to people in West Africa

A fruit bat

CARRIED AWAY  Straw-colored fruit bats, Eidolon helvum (shown), and other bat species may have carried Ebola virus from Central Africa to West Africa, where the virus is now causing the largest-ever epidemic of the disease.

Fritz Geller-Grimm/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

By Tina Hesman Saey

- More than 2 years ago

Along with struggling to stem the deadly outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, scientists are racing to figure out where it came from.