{"id":15452,"date":"2020-09-24T09:59:34","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T13:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=15452"},"modified":"2020-09-27T15:14:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T19:14:25","slug":"reston-monkey-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/reston-monkey-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reston Monkey House: First US Ebola Outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the Reston monkey house? What happened when there was an Ebola outbreak at the Reston monkey house?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reston monkey house is a quarantine facility where research animals were housed. There was an Ebola outbreak at the Reston monkey house<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about the Reston monkey house and the Ebola outbreak there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ebola Appears in the U.S. <\/strong>at the Reston Monkey House<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The mysteries surrounding filoviruses\u2019 source and transmission intensified when Ebola appeared in the U.S. two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October of 1989, 100 wild monkeys were shipped from the Philippines to the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit in Reston, Virginia. The facility was an arm of Hazleton Research Products, a company that imported and sold lab animals. When imported wild monkeys arrive in the United States\u2014typically for laboratory testing\u2014they must be held in quarantine for a month before they\u2019re sent anywhere else in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this shipment of monkeys arrived, two were already dead. A few dead monkeys wasn\u2019t unusual, but in less than a month, 29 of the 100 monkeys had died. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geisbert Recognizes Filovirus Particles<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the holiday, Geisbert inspected the supposedly contaminated cells under his electron microscope. He recognized what he saw: The cells were bulging with rope-like viruses, just like he\u2019d seen in pictures of samples from Cardinal\u2019s blood. It was a filovirus, but the threads were less curled than Marburg virus<\/a> particles. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geisbert printed the images and showed Jahrling. Jahrling recognized the signature thread-like shapes. Although there were some differences between the cells in Geisbert\u2019s photos and the images of Marburg in the textbook they consulted, it was close enough to be concerning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geisbert and Jahrling thought of how they\u2019d sniffed the flask with the cell cultures, and they worried about their exposure. <\/strong>It had been 10 days, and neither had developed any symptoms\u2014but they were in the middle of the incubation period, so they weren\u2019t in the clear yet. They decided to take the wait-and-see approach, meanwhile testing their blood to check for signs of infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Threat of Ebola Intensifies<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, Dalgard spoke to Peters and agreed to let Johnson, Jaax, and Peters inspect the tissues of the monkey carcasses\u2014but Dalgard was still hesitant to let them into the monkey house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Dalgard called Volt, the monkey colony manager, to tell him about the Army\u2019s findings. Volt told Dalgard that one of the animal caretakers in the Reston monkey house\u2014who is identified as Jarvis Purdy\u2014had suffered a heart attack. Purdy was at the hospital, and he might be dying. Suddenly, the threat became real to Dalgard: Purdy could be infected with Ebola, and the virus could infect and kill others, as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dalgard instructed Volt to suspend all activity in the monkey rooms besides feeding, cleaning, and observation\u2014and those tasks had to be done in full biohazard gear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army Sterilizes the Reston Monkey House<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within a few days, the media had caught wind of the viral outbreak at Reston. On the morning of the Army\u2019s first sterilization operation at Reston, the front-page story in The Washington Post<\/em> was about the discovery of Ebola in the monkey house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters had given the reporter a quote for the story, speaking carefully to avoid raising panic and to assure the public that everything was under control. The Army had to act as cautiously and inconspicuously as possible during its mission to avoid making a scene at the Reston facility.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jerry Jaax and his team prepared to enter the monkey house that morning, no one wore uniforms, and they wouldn\u2019t change into their biohazard space suits until they were in a designated staging area inside the building. To onlookers, it appeared to be a benign operation\u2014rather than the serious biohazard mission it was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Dalgard was surprised by the Army\u2019s space suits\u2014he\u2019d been handling infected monkey corpses for weeks with much less protection, and he felt fine. Wearing only a respirator, Dalgard led several Army officials into the monkey room, and he picked out the four sickest-looking monkeys to be studied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monkeys were euthanized and then Nancy Jaax<\/a> took them back to USAMRIID for dissection. This time, she found clear signs of Ebola<\/strong>, including: <\/p>\n\n\n\n