The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus

On Friday, December 1, Eugene Johnson loads his stockpile of protective gear from the failed Kitum Cave expedition and sets off for the Reston monkey house. The Washington Post breaks the story of the outbreak. CJ Peters is quoted in the article, where he strives to understate the level of cause for alarm. Wearing civilian clothes and driving unmarked vehicles, a small team converges on the monkey house and begins the task of destroying the 500 monkeys inside. Working in pairs, the team visits each cage, where one member holds each monkey in place with a pole while the other sedates the monkey with a pole-mounted syringe. The sedated monkeys are subjected to blood-draws and lethal injection and are then opened for tissue sampling before being bagged up for disposal. Monkeys necropsied by Nancy Jaax on this day show obvious signs of Ebola, some “essentially a heap of mush and bones in a skin bag, mixed with huge amounts of amplified virus” (373).

The following Monday, Dalgard arrives to find a monkey worker on the lawn outside the monkey house in a white Tyvek jump-suit. He is at first annoyed because all workers are under orders not to allow their protective gear to be seen in public, and then he is alarmed because the man is outside vomiting.