Kitum Cave is located in

Mount Elgon National Park Mount Elgon National Park is a national park northeast of Lake Victoria. The park covers an area of and is bisected by the border of Kenya and Uganda. The Ugandan part of the park covers while the Kenyan part covers . The Kenyan part of the p ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

. In the 1980s, two European visitors contracted

Marburg virus disease Marburg virus disease (MVD; formerly Marburg hemorrhagic fever) is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and primates caused by either of the two Marburgviruses: Marburg virus (MARV) and Ravn virus (RAVV). Its clinical symptoms are very similar t ...

there. It is one of five named “elephant caves” of Mount Elgon where animals, including elephants, “mine” the rock for its sodium-rich salts.

Description

Kitum Cave is a non-solutional

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

developed in

pyroclastic Pyroclastic rocks (derived from the el, πῦρ, links=no, meaning fire; and , meaning broken) are clastic rocks composed of rock fragments produced and ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions. The individual rock fragments are known as pyroc ...

(volcanic) rocks (not, as some have presumed, a

lava tube A lava tube, or pyroduct, is a natural conduit formed by flowing lava from a volcanic vent that moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. If lava in the tube empties, it will leave a cave. Formation A lava tube is a type of lava ca ...

). It extends about into the side of Mount Elgon near the Kenyan border with

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

. The walls are rich in

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

, and animals such as

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

s have gone deep into the cave for centuries in search of salt. The elephants use their tusks to break off pieces of the cave wall that they then chew and swallow, leaving the walls scratched and furrowed; their actions have likely enlarged the cave over time. When the cave was first discovered, it was thought that ancient Egyptians had made the marks on the cave walls as they attempted to mine with picks for precious metals or gemstones. Other animals including

bushbuck The Cape bushbuck (''Tragelaphus sylvaticus'') is a common and a widespread species of antelope in sub-Saharan Africa.Wronski T, Moodley Y. (2009)Bushbuck, harnessed antelope or both? ''Gnusletter'', 28(1):18-19. Bushbuck are found in a wide ra ...

, buffalo and

hyena Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the clas ...

s come to Kitum Cave to consume salt left by the elephants. There is a lot of

bat guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. ...

deeper in the cave from fruit-eating and

insectivorous bat Microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera ( bats). Bats have long been differentiated into Megachiroptera (megabats) and Microchiroptera, based on their size, the use of echolocation by the Microchiroptera an ...

s. There is also a deep crevasse into which young elephants have fallen and died.

Marburg virus

In the 1980s, two visitors to the cave contracted

. In 1980, a French man died from the disease after visiting the cave, and in 1987 a 15-year-old Danish boy who lived in Kenya also fell ill and died after visiting the cave. Two different but very similar viruses have been catalogued from these infections: the 1980 virus is named after a doctor, Shem Musoke, who survived being infected by the French patient, while the 1987 virus is named Ravn, after the last name of the Danish patient. Based on these cases, an expedition was staged by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) in an attempt to identify the

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

species presumably residing in the cave. Despite sampling a wide variety of species (including fruit bats), no Marburg disease-causing viruses were found and the animal vector remained a mystery. These events were dramatized by

Richard Preston Richard Preston (born August 5, 1954) is a writer for ''The New Yorker'' and bestselling author who has written books about infectious disease, bioterrorism, redwoods and other subjects, as well as fiction. Biography Preston was born in Cambri ...

in the best-selling book ''

The Hot Zone ''The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story'' is a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. The basis of the book was P ...

'' (1994). In September 2007, similar expeditions to active mines in

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

and

found solid evidence of reservoirs of Marburg disease-causing virus in cave-dwelling

Egyptian fruit bat The Egyptian fruit bat or Egyptian rousette (''Rousettus aegyptiacus'') is a species of megabat that is found in Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Indian subcontinent. It is one of three ''Rousettus'' species with an African-Ma ...

s. The Ugandan mines both had colonies of the same species of African fruit bats that colonize Kitum Cave, suggesting that the long-sought vector at Kitum was indeed the bats and their

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

. The study was conducted after two mine workers contracted Marburg virus disease in August 2007, both without being bitten by any bats, suggesting that the virus may be propagated through inhalation of powdered guano.

References

External links

Kenya Wildlife Service – Mount Elgon National Park
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{{EngvarB, date=November 2020 Mount Elgon Caves of Kenya