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Terrorists Killing Hippos!


KipWellsFan

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courtesy cbc.ca

 

KAMPALA, UGANDA - Nearly 200 hippopotamuses are dead after an anthrax outbreak in western Uganda.

 

Wildlife officials in the East African nation said Tuesday 194 Hippos had died In Queen Elizabeth National Park since July.

 

The park's chief warden John Bosco Nuwe said it took months of research and testing to determine the cause of the deaths, which was finally identified as anthrax by German scientists.

 

"We are vaccinating the livestock around the park or those in close proximity," said Nuwe.

 

Anthrax, a soil-borne disease caused by the bacillus anthracis bacterium, produces toxic spores that remain in the soil for years and kill animals. Symptoms include high fever and bleeding.

 

An expert from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has joined a task force to fight the epidemic.

 

Reports said 10 Ugandans also died after eating infected hippo. This could not be confirmed, but the park director did say authorities were "telling people not to panic and stop eating hippo meat."

 

Anthrax has been developed into a biological weapon, but it exists naturally in most countries around the world.

 

It is still unclear how the agent came to be present in a number of places in the United States in the weeks following the September 11 attacks. Five people died after Anthrax spores were found in various locations around the U.S., including the Senate and Supreme Court mailrooms.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2...ppos041109.html

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