The Virus Station: A Field Lab for Finding a Deadly Disease
To catch a fast-acting virus, response teams have to be faster A man who worked in a lead and gold mine in southwest Uganda died suddenly from a hemorrhagic fever. Concerned that it could be the beginning of an outbreak of Marburg virus, which is similar to Ebola, doctors sent a blood sample to the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where pathologists confirmed that Marburg was indeed the cause of death and alerted the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both the WHO and the CDC are tasked with containing the spread of virulent diseases. If scientists could locate the animal that transmitted the virus to the miner, they could stop an outbreak. Two days later, in Atlanta, a team of eight scientists from the Viral Special Pathogens Branch of the CDC loaded respirators and Tyvek suits, liquid nitrogen tanks, folding tables, a generator and five gallons of...