Peter Piot: "On the last Tuesday in September 1976 my boss at the microbiology lab was alerted that a special package was on its way to us from Zaire. It was flying in from Kinshasa: samples of blood from an unusual epidemic that seemed to be stirring in the distant Equatuer region, along the river Congo. Nothing quite like this had happened in the two years I had so far been working in a junior position at the lab in Antwerp, Belguim. But I knew it was part of the job. We sometimes took in strange samples of bodily fluids and tried to work out what they were. Our lab was certified to diagnose all kinds of diseases, including arbovirus infections like yellow fever, and the working hypothesis for this epidemic was reported to be 'yellow fever with hemorrhagic manifestations.'"
What was shipped in a cheap plastic thermos where one of the test tubes had broken and the ice was melting was so much worse than anything they expected: Ebola.
Find the book in the new book section under 616.9101 PIOT.
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