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Scientists have discovered Marburg virus in fruit bats in Sierra Leone. This is the first time the deadly virus has been found in West Africa. Five Egyptian rousette fruit bats tested positive for active Marburg virus infection. Scientists caught the bats separately in three health districts: Moyamba, Koinadugu and Kono.

Wildlife veterinarians at the Hummingbird Health and Conservation Program in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine recently published a study describing a new system to track hummingbirds visiting feeders in urban gardens.

In 2018, the southern resident killer whale population in the Pacific Northwest’s Salish Sea was at its lowest ever. The world watched in September as an orca named Scarlet, or J50, wasted away and died, leaving just 74 of her kind left. Some wondered if this was “What extinction looks like.”

Coconut, the snow leopard cub born at the Sacramento Zoo earlier this year, underwent a rare eyelid surgery on Wednesday, October 24. UC Davis veterinary specialists and the Sacramento Zoo veterinary team collaborated to correct a congenital eyelid defect known as coloboma. This ocular deformity is sometimes documented in snow leopards under human care. Coconut was also born with other birth defects that impact his mobility.

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As California gears up for the Global Climate Action Summit held in San Francisco this week, the University of California, Davis, participates in several solutions-based efforts to help sound science inform global climate actions.

UC Davis has organized five official affiliate events of the summit, one on campus in Davis and four in San Francisco.

The following sources from the University of California, Davis, are available to talk with media about climate change in relation to wildlife health, wildlife conservation and infectious disease.  

For the first time, scientists discovered a new ebolavirus species in a host prior to detection in an infected human or sick animal.

People in the Bwindi region of southwestern Uganda have suspected exposure to filoviruses, particularly those in contact with wildlife, according to a new study led by researchers at the UC Davis One Health Institute and the Bwindi Community Hospital in Uganda. The study, published June 18 inThe Journal of Infectious Diseases, is the first report of human exposure to ebolaviruses in the region.

The next generation of One Health professionals faces a world of interconnected challenges. Global disease outbreaks like Ebola and Zika viruses, antimicrobial resistance, food insecurity, pollution and biosecurity are related to changes in land use, the climate, economy, industry and society.

Rather than wait for viruses like Ebola, SARS and Zika to become outbreaks that force the world to react, a new global initiative seeks to proactively identify, prepare for and stop viral threats before they become pandemics.

Scientists from the University of California, Davis, have detected a herpes virus in wild mountain gorillas that is very similar to the Epstein-Barr virus in humans, according to a study published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

Results of a five-year study in 20 countries on three continents have found that bats harbor a large diversity of coronaviruses (CoV), the family of viruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS).

Coastal waters near heavy human development are more likely to receive land-based “pathogen pollution,” which can include viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to a recent study from the University of California, Davis. The study said higher levels of rainfall and development increase the risk of disease-causing organisms flowing to the ocean.

Chewed bark, leaves and fruit discarded by mountain gorillas provide a simple way to test the endangered apes for viruses without disturbing them, according to scientists from the University of California, Davis, studying mountain gorillas and golden monkeys in East-Central Africa.

The method is described in a study published recently in the American Journal of Primatology. The study is led by UC Davis’ One Health Institute and Gorilla Doctors, a program led by the nonprofit Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project and UC Davis.  

A noninvasive technique involving strawberry jam and a piece of rope is helping surveillance for diseases that might jump from monkeys to humans according to a study from the University of California, Davis.