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 "Zika? That one I have never heard about - what kind of disease is
that?" said Julius Makumbi, 38, a motorbike taxi rider who lives
near the forest.
His nonchalance is understandable. This may be the birthplace of
Zika - the virus took its name from the forest after being found
here nearly 70 years ago - but there is no record of it causing
health problems in the area.
Julius Lutwama, a Ugandan virologist who has researched
mosquito-borne viruses, including Zika, for 31 years, believes Zika
is unlikely to be a threat here because Africans appear to have
resistance.
"There may be some kind of immunity," Lutwama told Reuters in an
interview, although he added there have never been any tests to
ascertain that.
"We have so many diseases which are related to Zika, they may confer
some kind of immunity to the African body," Lutwama said, pointing
to similar viruses like dengue, West Nile virus and yellow fever
that have afflicted the region for years.
The strain of Zika now infecting people in Brazil and spreading
panic in the Americas also seems to be different, which may be good
news for now but suggests Africa could yet be at risk if the
Brazilian type crosses the Atlantic.
There are already reasons for concern, with more than 7,000 Zika
infections in the Cape Verde archipelago off West Africa, including
the first case last week of a baby born with microcephaly, the brain
disorder thought to be linked to Zika.
Zika was first identified in a rhesus monkey by two Scots,
virologist George Dick and entomologist Alexander Haddow, while they
were researching yellow fever in the Zika Forest in 1947.
Today, birds chirp incessantly, snakes and a leopard lurk, grey
monkeys hop about in tree branches and squirrels streak across in
the undergrowth.
A 120-foot-high steel tower in the forest, erected in 1962, is still
used by scientists to collect mosquitoes for research into myriad
viruses, affecting humans and animals, but there is little other
sign in the 15-acre Zika Forest of its role in one of the world's
major biggest healthy crises.
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A cabin labeled "information centre" sits rusting on the northern
edge of the forest, with one door hanging on a single hinge.
Inside, there are only a few clothes and personal effects belonging
to Gerald Mukisa, 50, the forest's keeper and guide. Nearby are two
huts that serve as living quarters for him and his five children.
He says the forest has been neglected and worries about encroachment
by developers.
"Those houses are not supposed to be there," Mukisa says, pointing
to a couple of residences that he says were built on land that was
part of the government-owned forest.
Some woodcutters also sneak into the forest and cut down trees to
sell as fuel, diminishing biodiversity in the tiny forest that
boasts as many as 136 tree species.
"I have asked for at least a gun to help scare people who want to do
illegal activities but no one is listening," Mukisa said. “I am
helpless.”
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Ben Hirschler/Mark
Heinrich)
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