Monday, August 4, 2014

The Beast from the Kitum Cave

"The Hot Zone" is an old book written by Richard Preston in 1994 about the Ebola outbreak in the 1980s and the reaction in the American scientific community to the threat. This is a summary of interesting aspects of the book and its take on the disease and our reactions.

The first known Ebola infection occurred in Marburg, Germany, in August of 1967. The site was a warehouse holding monkeys imported from Uganda. A warehouse worker contracted it and it quickly spread. 31 were infected and 7 died.

In July, 1976, a Sudanese shopkeeper, a Mister Yu G., gets symptoms of the virus and dies. It spreads locally until it reaches the hospital in Maridi where it kills many in the hospital through contact and reused needles. Then the episode dies out and stops. This is the first episode of Ebola Sudan, the deadliest of the Ebolas.

In September, 1976, a patient with the disease enters the hospital in Yambuku, Zaire and, again with reused needles, the virus spreads throughout the hospital killing patients and medical workers. 280 die. A nurse named Mayinga travels to the hospital in Kinshasa and the disease spreads throughout the city. The area is quarantined, read "surrounded by armed and hostile men," and the disease runs its course and disappears.

On Christmas day, 1979, Charles Monet, a French ex-pat and amateur naturalist living in Kenya, visits the Kitum Cave at Mount Elgon. Seven days later he is bleeding from everywhere. He is put on a plane and vomits all over the other passengers. He dies gruesomely in the ER of the Nairobi Hospital and the treating physician, Dr. Shem Musoke, gets the disease but survives.
Yambuku
A monkey warehouse worker became infected and the virus quickly spread. Out of the 31 infected 7 died. - See more at: http://www.preceden.com/timelines/70704-hot-zone-timeline#sthash.pQ1o0IHt.dpuf
A monkey warehouse worker became infected and the virus quickly spread. Out of the 31 infected 7 died. - See more at: http://www.preceden.com/timelines/70704-hot-zone-timeline#sthash.pQ1o0IHt.dpuf
A monkey warehouse worker became infected and the virus quickly spread. Out of the 31 infected 7 died. - See more at: http://www.preceden.com/timelines/70704-hot-zone-timeline#sthash.pQ1o0IHt.dpu

Monet

September, 1987, a young Dutch boy named Peter Cardinal dies in Kenya of the virus. He had just visited the Kitum Cave.
Eugene "Gene" Johnson, a civilian bio-hazard expert who runs the Ebola research program at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), identifies the Marburg virus in a blood serum sample taken from Cardinal. He also proves that Marburg and Ebola have the ability to travel through the air.

In October, 1989, the Reston Monkey House research facility in the D.C. suburb of Reston Va. reports that their monkeys are dying. Several virologist start an investigation with virtually no protection and USAMRIID is called. The technicians decide not to confess they have been exposed and are never quarantined.
The virus is identified as Ebola and named Ebola Reston. It kills every monkey in the monkey-house. All four of the animal caretakers eventually test positive for Ebola Reston, but the virus merely incubates for a period and then vacates the system with no ill effects. Marburg, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Sudan have been joined by Ebola Reston. Researchers say that it is so much like Ebola Zaire that they cannot say why it does not seem to make humans sick.

All of these subtypes are found in Africa, except for Ebola Reston, which is found in the Philippines. The Ebola Reston virus is also the only subtype that will not cause illness in humans—it only affects animals.

The casualness of professionals in the face of serious danger, a confidence fueled by false assumption, should give anyone seeking to give license to self-proclaimed experts pause. 

Kitum Cave has become pilgrimage site for virologists, a fearsome holy place of awe and evil.

And an electron microscopic picture of The Beast:

2 comments:

jim said...

An article referencing the Encyclopedia Britannica indeed says that Zaire is more virulent.
J

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