Here comes another drop in my HN points.<p>The simple truth is that there is no explanation of how the Zaire variant of Ebola arrived in West Africa, travelling over a 1500 miles without any outbreaks between.<p>Last time I checked not a single animal, bat or otherwise, in the area of the outbreak has been found infected the Ebola virus since the beginning of the outbreak. There is simply no evidence of Ebola having been transmitted from an animal to a human being in West Africa or Central Africa for the 40 years the virus has been known, yet the media runs on and on about 'bush meat' (which is a derogatory term for meat obtained by hunting or trapping), deforestation and other nonsensical theories about how Ebola emerged there.<p>Coming to the term 'bush meat' when a Westerner hunts deer, ducks or grouse is it called 'bush meat'? This only shows the kind of snide, racist, innuendo towards Africa and really hints an agenda to manufacture an unsubstantiated source of Ebola in the mind of uninformed Westerners.<p>Shouldn't science be based on hard evidence rather than speculation? Ebola so far has been transmitted from human to human, meaning that a human must be the original source of Ebola. This is what science is supposed to mean, based on facts and evidence. So it raises the question who is patient zero, and how and where did they get and infected?<p>Prior to any outbreak the only places where Ebola can be found is in drug manufacturers and other biological laboratories, so why the surprise at conspiracy theories?<p>Then again there comes another question? Why Africa?<p>The amount of unexplored Amazonian rainforest is way larger than that in West Africa, why haven't any Ebola style outbreaks occurred there, or in areas like Indonesia, New Guinea and Malaysia?<p>Claims which cause people to avoid sources of treatment are not helpful in these circumstances, but with so called foreign assistance being the source of cholera in Haiti, which should anyone be surprised at conspiracy theories?