A review of THE COMING PLAGUE: NEWLY EMERGING DISEASES IN A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE by Laurie Garrett, published in 1994. Chapter 5: Yambuku – EBOLA
They took McCormick and van Niewenhove to Isiro some 300 miles north near the Sudanese frontier
On October 31, 1976 Sureau, Germain, McCormick, and recently arrived Belgian researcher Simon van Niewenhove gathered on the military strip at N’djili Airport at four-thirty in the morning with two fully equipped Land-Rovers complete with a three-week supply of diesel fuel, food (C rations), and water. The plan was for the group to fly up to Bumba, where they would leave off Sureau and Germain, then proceed further north to Isiro. McCormick was destined for Maridi while van Niewenhove was assigned to search the remote southernmost expanse between Zaire and Sudan for additional pockets of the epidemic. The pilots landed in Bumba and, as always, kept their engines running while Max and Pierre unloaded the cargo and waved goodbye to their friends. Then they took McCormick and van Niewenhove to Isiro some 300 miles north near the Sudanese frontier. The two men drove their well-stocked Land-Rovers off the C-130, shook hands, and headed in opposite directions.
Information was, at best, muddled
Toward the Sudanese border fewer people spoke French, or Otela, or any other Bantu tongue of which McCormick had a passing knowledge. All too often Joe found himself trying to make sense of conversations that began in Azandi, were translated into Lingala, and then conveyed to him in French. Information was, at best, muddled. He was making his way through an area that experienced torrential rains nine months out of the year, and was perpetually mud-laden. At the border he discovered an Italian Catholic mission so removed from its Roman headquarters that the priests were living on five-year-old flour and the ‘protein’ provided by insects that infested their meager supplies. The priests told McCormick there were rumors of an epidemic around the Sudanese village of N’zara, located some sixty miles further northeast. McCormick was introduced to the chief of a Zairian village adjacent to the border who signed a letter asking his counterpart on the Sudanese side of the border to admit McCormick into the country.
McCormick’s container, pregnant with information, waited in the hot N’zara sun
For three weeks McCormick slept in the Land-Rover by night and interviewed epidemic victims and survivors by day. Satisfied that the epidemic was under control, his supplies dangerously low, McCormick prepared to return to Zaire, leaving a container of blood samples for Francis who was heading up an official WHO team making its way to N’zara from Khartoum, having no idea that Francis and his team were trapped in Khartoum, hostage to terrified pilots refusing to fly and government bureaucrats uncertain about providing open access to the Europeans and Americans. McCormick’s container, pregnant with information, waited in the hot N’zara sun.
An astonishing lethality rate of 90.7%
Much had happened in his absence. A full-scale epidemiological survey of all the villages surrounding the Yambuku Mission had been conducted, surveying over 550 villages, interviewing 34,000 families, and taking blood samples from 442 people in the hardest-hit communities. In addition, team members gathered a sampling of local insects and animals to test for viral infection. On November 6, Zaire’s Minister of Health issued an international report summarizing findings to date: 358 cases of viral disease had occurred, 325 were fatal. That was an astonishing lethality rate of 90.7%. All tests in labs throughout the world proved that “this agent is a new virus.” “The name ‘Ebola,’ after a little river in the region where the disease first appeared is proposed for this virus.” Several days later the International Commission learned that Geoffrey Platt had contacted Ebola disease in England.