World IN BRIEF : PHILIPPINES : U.S. to Help Stem Spread of Ebola

American scientists will set up a laboratory and a primate survey system in the Philippines to help prevent more Ebola-infected monkeys from being exported to the United States. The two-week visit by a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was prompted by the discovery of the Ebola virus among 100 monkeys shipped to a Texas primate center last month. The Texas virus is almost identical to a strain that struck a Reston, Va., primate center in 1989. The monkeys in Reston also came from the Philippines. The Philippine strain does not appear to infect or harm humans, said Dr. Thomas G. Ksiazek, head of the CDC team. Another strain of Ebola causes hemorrhaging in humans and killed 245 of 316 people infected in Zaire last year. Ebola also claimed the lives of 13 people in Gabon earlier this year. It has no known cure.