Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come

by Richard Preston

Whenever there was an epidemic of smallpox, people who were suspected of having the disease, and their young children, were placed in a hut that was constructed outside the village. The hut was stocked with a supply of water and food, while any physical contact with the victims was forbidden. After a certain amount of time, if anybody in the hut had survived, they were allowed to come back to the village. When there were no more signs of life in the hut, it was burned, with the corpses in it.

Don’t touch anybody who has the disease, don’t embrace the dead, bury them right away, and follow the Ancient Rule.

Deep sequencing has revealed that viruses are everywhere.

Anja Wolz, the Kailahun camp’s clinical manager, made journeys to Kissi towns and villages in the Triangle during August and September of 2014, at the time when the virus was exploding in the cities. What she saw in the Triangle was that the Kissi villages had started practicing reverse quarantine, closing themselves off from outsiders to prevent the virus from entering the village. This is exactly what villagers did at Yambuku in 1976. “The villagers were quarantining themselves at the local level. Anybody

who came into a village was checked beforehand,” Wolz said. “They were checking who was coming into the village, who was sick.” Villagers inspected Wolz and her driver for symptoms and made them wash their hands in chlorine before they were allowed into a village. At one village, Wolz and her driver were told they couldn’t go in at all, because the village had isolated itself from the world. “It was like something out of the past,” Wolz said. “They weren’t going to burials, they stopped kissing each other, they weren’t touching each other. Behavior changes.” “This is how all outbreaks end,” Armand Sprecher, the Doctors’ official in Brussels, said. “It’s always a change in behavior. Ebola outbreaks end when people decide they’re going to end.”

Antibody drugs have begun to look like a huge advance in medicine.

Course Zero ended up sitting in a freezer at an undisclosed location in or near Washington, D.C. Course Zero, which might have been used on Lisa Hensley if she’d come down with Ebola, was now reserved for the exclusive use of the President of the United States. Just in case Ebola ever comes to Washington.

there is a lot of value in preparing for an outbreak, because what happens in an outbreak is predictable. Let’s be prepared, not scared.”