ZEBOV-L1: The New Weapon Ch.2

Chapter 2

Doctors' from nearby villages came first. They were confounded by the symptoms. This was obviously not the flu. This virus killed quickly by destroying the immune system and causing organ failure. Ebola was discussed, but this was spreading rapidly–person to person and Ebola was not transmitted human to human so quickly and it did not include the additional symptoms seen throughout the village. The span of time from the onset of Ebola symptoms to death is usually between 2 and 21 days. Generally, By the second week of infection, with the Ebola Virus patients will have a diminishing of their fever or undergo systemic multi-organ failure. The cause of death is usually due to hypovolemic shock or organ failure. These inflicted were dead within one to two weeks their fevers never did diminish. In addition, the patients were suffering with coughs, encephalitis, seizures, high blood pressure and neck pain. Whatever this was, was airborne and deadly.

Calls began going out to the Center's for Disease Control, World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders. The area was quarantined and surrounded by the Congonese Army. Doctors, Nurses and Virologists began arriving within the week. Villiagers who were not yet affected were terrified as they watched those die around them. Many tried to leave the sequestered area and were turned back, those who failed to listen and tried to pass through were shot by the military guard. Kaluamba had become a Villiage of death.

There was talk of two of the nearest villages dealing with outbreaks of their own. Those villages also reported large numbers of dead or afflicted. A Pandemic was declared in that region of the Congo.

Scientists in the make-shift laboratory in Kaluamba, Congo were feverishly working on a diagnoses for this illness. An Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay test (ELISA) was performed and the Ebola Virus was present. But under the microscope this virus did not look like any Ebola ever seen. It did not make sense, It had all of the characteristics of the Zaire Virus, yet the Lassa Virus also seemed to be present. The markers were all there. Not one of them had ever seen this blueprint before. It appeared that they were viewing a totally new virus, recombinant of the ZEBOV and Lassa viruses. They would call it ZEBOV-L1 from now on. Now the only things left to do were to contain the new virus and pray they could find a cure! The Zaire virus had already killed almost 200 hundred people back in 2007. Now it was back with a severity distinct from any other era, it had gone airborne! Lassa was its propellant! The viral trans membrane super-family made possible the divergence of Arenavirus and Filovirus glycoproteins from a common RNA virus ancestor. This made this new virus a Bio-safety level 5 agent and a Class A bio-terrorism risk. This was the worse case scenario.