A cave named Kitam is located within a dormant volcano in the center of Mount Elgon National Park in Kenya. It is said that this cave is made of the teeth of elephants, who go into it to scrape the walls for salt. This cave is considered to be the home of germs that cause some of the most deadly diseases for humans.
In 1980, a French engineer from a nearby sugar factory was infected with Marburg virus after visiting Kitum Cave. Due to this virus melting in his body, the engineer died instantly in a hospital in Nairobi. Seven years after this incident, Kitam Cave claimed another life. This was a Danish schoolboy who went on holidays with his family. The virus that caused the boy’s death is now called Raven virus.
The cave’s valuable salty minerals have made it a destination not only for elephants but also for western Kenya’s buffalo, antelope, leopards and hyenas, but scientists now realize that these minerals have turned Kitum into an incubator for zoonotic diseases. Have given.
People who had visited this cave before have died from deadly infections. (Symbolic photo: Wikimedia Commons)
When Kitam was first discovered, researchers did not know what to make of the scratches and scuffs on its walls. It was later realized that the 600-foot deep cave had been continuously deepened and widened by elephants, becoming only a haven for disease-carrying bats.
The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) launched an expedition into Kitam Cave, wearing pressurized, filtered Racal suits, following the events of the 1980s, but failed to identify the species responsible for the spread of deadly pathogens to humans. Kept struggling for.
But, more than a decade later, Marburg RNA was found in a healthy-looking Egyptian “fruit bat” (Roussetus aegyptiacus) extracted from a cave in July 2007. This virus has been found in other caves across Africa. WHO has described it as a potential epidemic. It can jump to humans from fruit bats living in Central Africa and can also spread between people through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.
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FIRST PUBLISHED: April 22, 2024, 15:36 IST
