Ebola Likely Leaked from a Lab as Well

Dr Mercola

Story at-a-glance

• In December 2013, Zaire Ebola hemorrhagic fever broke out in Guinea and over the next three years spread across West Africa, ultimately killing 11,323 people. It was the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history
• According to a paper published at the end of December 2014, the Ebola epidemic was traced back to a 2-year-old boy in Meliandou, Guinea. Supposedly, the boy had come in contact with an infected fruit bat in a hollowed-out tree. However, no Ebolavirus was ever detected in any of the bat samples collected from the area
• The senior author on that 2014 paper was Fabian Leendertz, a renowned virus hunter with the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. Leendertz was also a member of the World Health Organization team that investigated the origin of COVID-19, concluding without evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was of zoonotic origin
• In late October 2022, Sam Husseini and Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., published a new analysis, in which they highlighted the holes in the zoonotic origin narrative and laid out the evidence pointing to a lab leak
• Curiously, many of the same individuals, companies and organizations involved in the Ebola epidemic have also been linked to the alleged creation of SARS-CoV-2

In December 2013, Zaire Ebola hemorrhagic fever broke out in Guinea and over the next three years spread across West Africa, ultimately killing 11,323 people.¹ While Ebola epidemics occur on a near-annual basis, this was the largest and deadliest in history.²

Of the five Ebola viruses known to cause disease in humans, Zaire Ebolavirus, first identified in Zaire in 1976, is the most dangerous, with a fatality rate ranging between 53% and 88%,³ depending on the variant.

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The Virus Hunter That Assigned Zoonotic Origin

According to a paper⁴ published at the end of December 2014, the Ebola epidemic was traced back to a 2-year-old boy in Meliandou, Guinea, named Emile Ouamouno. Supposedly, the boy had come in contact with an infected fruit bat in a hollowed-out tree.

This, even though no Ebolavirus RNA was ever detected in any of the bat samples collected from the area. Interestingly enough, the senior author on that paper was Fabian Leendertz, a renowned virus hunter with the Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

Leendertz was also a member of the World Health Organization team that investigated the origin of COVID-19.⁵ As you may recall, they also concluded, without evidence, that SARS-CoV-2 was most likely of zoonotic origin and dismissed the lab leak theory as not worthy of further consideration.

Lab Leak Suspected From the Start

However, just as with SARS-CoV-2, suspicions and rumors that the Ebola outbreak was the result of a lab leak were present from the start. Some scientists even suspected the virus might be a weaponized form of Ebola.

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In late October 2022, Sam Husseini and Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., published a new analysis^7,8,9 in Independent Science News, in which they laid out the evidence pointing to a lab leak. They also dissect Leendertz December 2014 report, highlighting the holes in the zoonotic origin narrative. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest the outbreak in in Meliandou wasn’t Ebola at all. H

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Was Ebola Experimented On Before the Outbreak?

As detailed by Husseini and Latham,¹² “persistent rumors in the region linked the outbreak to a US-run research laboratory in Kenema, Sierra Leone.¹³ This facility studies viral hemorrhagic diseases, of which Ebola is one.”

The Kenema lab, which has been run by the U.S.-based Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC) since 2010, is located about 50 miles from the village in Guinea where the Ebola outbreak first emerged.¹⁴

The founder and president of the VHFC is Robert (Bob) Garry, who was also part of the group of virologists who in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic concocted “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper¹⁵ in which they dismissed the lab leak theory and insisted zoonotic origin was the most plausible, despite the lack of evidence.¹⁶

As recently as November 2022, Garry still insisted SARS-CoV-2 “emerged via the wildlife trade.”¹⁷ In that same article, Garry drew parallels to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, claiming that conspiracy pundits were wrong about Ebola being leaked from the Kenema lab, because “we did not have EBOV [ebolavirus] in our laboratory and therefore could not have released or engineered it.”

According to Garry, the Ebola and SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks are both victims of “guilt-by-proximity.” However, in a March 11, 2023, interview on the Decoding the Gurus podcast, Kristian Andersen, vice president of the VHFC’s Kenema lab¹⁸ and another “Proximal Origin” author, clearly refuted Garry’s claim:¹⁹

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So, what do we make of this? Garry claims the Kenema lab didn’t have any Ebola virus and Andersen says they did. Both are top executives at the lab and ought to know what was studied and what wasn’t. So, who’s telling the truth?

Was Kenema Lab Involved in Biowarfare Work?

According to Husseini and Latham,²⁰ there’s good reason to believe the Kenema lab was working with Ebola before the outbreak in Guinea, some 50 miles from the lab. For starters, the Guinea outbreak was the first time Zaire Ebola emerged in West Africa. All previous outbreaks of this most-lethal strain of Ebola occurred in the Congo basin, in the central African equatorial zone, some 3,000 kilometers (approximately 1,864 miles) from Guinea.

“Hence Zaire Ebola’s appearance in West Africa was a striking and very unexpected development,” they write. How did it get there? Ebola is not highly contagious as transmission typically requires direct contact.

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Zaire Ebola is also the preferred species used by research labs studying Ebola-type viruses, as it’s the most lethal and therefore has the greatest biowarfare potential.

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More Biowarfare Connections and Ebola Trials

Husseini and Latham point out that in 2014, when the Ebola outbreak occurred, Metabiota was a VHFC partner. As detailed in “Evidence of Pandemic and Bioweapon Cover-Ups,” Metabiota was hired by the WHO and the local government of Sierra Leone to monitor the spread of the Ebola epidemic, but clearly were not up to the task. A 2016 CBS News report detailed Metabiota’s bungled response.³⁰

2014 was also the year when Metabiota was entrusted with the operations of U.S. biological research labs in Ukraine, with funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and:^31,32

• Pilot Growth Management, cofounded by Neil Callahan. Callahan is also a cofounder of Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and he sits on Metabiota’s board of advisers
• In-Q-Tel, a CIA venture capital firm that specializes in high-tech investments that support or benefit the intelligence capacity of U.S. intelligence agencies
• Rosemont Seneca,³³ an investment fund co-managed by Hunter Biden³⁴

Metabiota’s founder, Nathan Wolfe, is also tied to EcoHealth president Peter Daszak, Ph.D., a prime suspect in the COVID pandemic who worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, where SARS-CoV-2 is suspected of having originated. Wolfe has also received more than $20 million in research grants from Google, the NIH and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, just to name a few.

Of all the scientists, companies and organizations involved in this kind of research across the world, how is it that the same short list of names pop up both in the Guinea Ebola case and COVID-19?

Aside from the Kenema lab’s obvious biowarfare connections, and the possibility of Ebola being experimented on there, several Ebola treatment trials were also taking place in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, about 190 km (118 miles) from Kenema, right around the same time that Ebola broke out in Guinea.

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Biosafety Is Lax at Kenema Lab

Latham and Husseini also review the lackadaisical approach to biosafety at the Kenema lab, despite working with extremely dangerous pathogens:³⁶

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Another oddity that doesn’t fit the nature of a natural outbreak was the fact that hotspots were broadly spread out. There was no epicenter. Moreover, according to WHO Ebola coordinator Philippe Barboza, Metabiota staffers were “systematically obstructing any attempt to improve the existing surveillance system.” MSF also complained they got no cooperation from Kenema.

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Genomic Testing

Latham and Husseini then delve into the genomic testing results, which suggest there was a “hidden” or unreported outbreak in Sierra Leone, which only later spread into Guinea. That doesn’t prove it came out of a lab in Sierra Leone, however. But unique features in the Makona strain of Ebola that caused the Guinea outbreak suggest the virus may have undergone some form of manipulation.

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Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/03/28/ebola-lab-leak.aspx/