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
The viruses simply answered back: “????”
Piot eagerly prepared the sample for analysis under an electron microscope. He gasped as he stared at the strange viruses; they were shaped like question marks. “This is a new virus! It’s something we have never seen before,” he exclaimed, feeling the thrill of discovery. The virus was a long wormlike tube that coiled at one end and left the other extended. Piot imagined that when he asked, “What is this?” the viruses simply answered back: “????”
Piot packed the last sample and wrote up his findings
Thoroughly committed to solving the mystery of the “????” viruses,” Piot was disappointed when WHO telexed on October 7 1976 that the group should cease all research immediately. Piot packed the last sample, wrote up his findings, and, as per WHO instructions, shipped the lot off to Karl Johnson at CDC. He was intrigued by the diagnosis, wanted to go to the scene of the epidemic to see for himself, and marched over to the Belgian Ministry of Development Cooperation to argue his case.
You can go. We will only fund one week
He didn’t need to underscore Belgium’s unique relationship with Zaire. In 1876 the European power had begun to colonize and brutalize the Congo, as it was called. Now, almost a hundred years since King Leopold II declared the Congo a part of the Belgian Empire, authorities in Brussels were at pains to rid their country of its guilty legacy. On the other hand, the Belgian government was also acutely aware of the risks inherent in offending Mobutu or his government. It was an extremely delicate situation to place in the hands of a twenty-seven-year-old, politically naïve post-doctoral student. “You can go. We will only fund one week. And you’re representing the Belgian government.” He was woefully ill equipped for what would become a three-month stay in a tropical rain forest during the Zairian summer.
The virus was quite lethal to rodents
Dr. Stefan Pattyn, before sending his samples on to England’s maximum-security laboratory in Porton Down, had completed studies in laboratory mice, which showed that the virus was quite lethal to rodents. He had also compared the mystery virus to Lassa, concluding that “it was probably some other arbovirus,” not the West African killer. Now he too departed for Zaire, leaving van der Gröen to monitor the health of the accident-exposed members of the Antwerp laboratory.
In 1976 the lab was designated a P3 facility
On October 14, Patricia Webb and Fred Murphy completed their first round of studies of the mystery virus, working in the CDC’s maximum-security laboratory. In 1976 the lab was designated a P3 facility. A P1 facility was a basic laboratory such as could be found lining hallways of university science departments; a P2 facility had a slightly higher level of security with entry limited to trained, authorized personnel and actual research work performed under hoods that sucked air away from the experiment, up a ventilator duct, and past scrubbers that disinfected the air with ultraviolet light and microscopically gridded filters; a P3 lab was state of the art in high-security research. For Webb, working in a P3 lab meant passing through a series of guarded locked doors, presenting her security pass for entry. She would then shower with disinfectant soap and don a set of head-to-toe protective clothing, gauze face mask, double latex gloves, and radiation badge to monitor her levels of exposure to isotopes occasionally used in such research. She would then pass through two more air locks lined with microbe-killing ultraviolet lights.
All air was forced in past microscopic filters
Once inside the inner core, Webb might enter either the laboratory or the animal room. Both rooms were pressurized; all air was forced in past microscopic filters and sucked back out rapidly through several additional layers of filters, ultraviolet lights, high heat sources, and chemical scrubbers. A further layer of protection was provided by glove boxes: more sophisticated versions of the portable box Karl Johnson jury-rigged for studies of the Machupo virus in Bolivia. All Webb’s samples from Zaire were stored in deep freezers overnight; small amounts were thawed during the day and analyzed inside the boxes. Webb would thrust her already double-gloved hands into a larger set of thick rubber gloves that were permanently installed in the clear-plastic front wall of the hooded box. She would then try, with three cumbersome layers of rubber over her hands, to manipulate test tubes, pipettes, petri dishes, and the like. It was slow-going, arduous work that often proved physically exhausting.