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A new study has highlighted a disaster that is brewing for countries in Africa due to the issue of global warming: the study’s climate models show that extreme heat waves may become an annual occurrence detrimentally impacting both life expectancy, and crop production in as little as two decades. With much of the continent lying within tropical latitudes, the heat experienced by Africa is infamous; with heat-caused drought, and famine already being an all-too common occurrence.
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Ebola may not be the only viral threat to come out of Africa. Another family of viruses, deadly in some cases, may have already jumped from fruit bats into humans in Africa, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Communications.

The study provides the first, preliminary scientific evidence that “spillover” of henipaviruses into human populations is underway.
Henipaviruses are known to cause rare infections, with some strains harmless, and others with mortality rates approaching 90 percent (similar rates to Ebola). This family of viruses has been a concern since two of its members, Nipah and Hendra, emerged in Australia and Southeast Asia less than 20 years ago.
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The world is waiting to see if Ebola has made the leap from the African continent to make a serious assault on the rest of the world.
As two cases were confirmed in the U.S. and another in Spain during the past few days, the primary focus of global governments is to contain the  virus and prevent its spread; an armament of international aid has been drafted into affected areas, but the many West African people under attack on the front lines of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia appear to be defenseless against its might.
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As the infamous Ebola virus continues to spread across the African continent, world leaders are now sending aid in an attempt to stop the virus from escalating out of control.

But have they left it too late?

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg thinks so. He told Germany’s Deutsche Welle that there is now little hope for the populations of Sierra Leone and Liberia and that the virus will only “burn itself out” when it has infected the entire population and killed five million people.

“The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” said Schmidt-Chanasit. “That time was May and June. “Now it is too late.”read more