The baby is removed from the womb. But, it's a stillbirth.
Before giving birth, the woman's face was strange: dazed, blank, expressionless, as if she had gone out of her soul. The whites of her eyes are inflamed, and a blood membrane on the surface of the eyeball makes the whites of her eyes sparkle. These symptoms are nothing unusual and look like adult cerebral malaria.
After seeing the dead baby, Sister Bieta drew a cross on her chest and prayed for it.
Her hands and forearms were stained with blood as they reached into the birth canal.
Usually, after childbirth, the ruptured blood vessels in the uterus close themselves due to blood clotting, and the bleeding stops immediately. However, the mother's blood was gushing, spreading on the delivery table, her blood pressure gradually dropped, her heart beat faster, and her breathing became rapid and irregular.
Eventually, the woman died because of excessive blood loss and shock.
The picture and text have nothing to do with the image source giphy
Outside the maternity ward, the night rain was noisy and people could not be at peace. The rainy season in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) has begun.
In September 1976, the mother, Sambo Ndobe, lost her life and her child at the parish hospital in Yambuku(a village in Zaire), about 50 miles north of the Congo River.
Interior view of the Diocese Hospital of Yambku, 1976, Source: CDC, USA
01 Death of the nun
The priest took the handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped the nun's blood and tears, incidentally brushing away the tears from the corners of his eyes. The slender, elderly priest with a goatee performs a deathbed ceremony for the nuns.
At sunrise, Sister Bieta died.
△ Sister Bieta
来源Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp(ITM)
Before she died, the nun's condition was extremely frightening.
At first, she began to squirt vomit. Vomit can be sprayed into mid-air up to two meters high. Then she spat out a wet, fecal-like black mass. Subsequently, she was incontinent.
At first, the excreted feces have a whitish mucus mixed with blood, and as the disease worsens, the feces become black liquid. A red rash mixed with red patches and red lumps spread over her torso.
Losing her emotions and the whites of her eyes filled with blood, Sister Bieta's face turned into a blank mask.
Within hours of the nun's death, people died one after another in the parish hospital, blood and excrement soaking the beds. People seem to be possessed by demons, they have blank expressions, they burp non-stop, they have nosebleeds, they are insane.
Thirteen days after the nun's death, the priest also died.
02 Blood samples from pregnant women and livers of dead women
Sharp cries came from inside the door.
In a black hole ward at Yambuku Parish Hospital, virologist Muyangbe illuminates rows of cradles and cots with flashlights and oil lamps. This is the pediatric ward. He leaned over to the cradle and saw a baby boy struggling in pain.
After five minutes, the baby stopped breathing, ending his life.
The parish hospital was deserted and empty.
The graphic is irrelevant, the source network
Is this an outbreak of visceral yellow fever? Or is it highly contagious typhoid fever? A few days after the strange illness occurred at the Yambuku Parish Hospital, Muyangbe was sent by the Ministry of Health to find answers. He decided to take a sample of liver tissue and bring it back to the lab for analysis.
The next day, a young nurse passed away at home. Muyangbe used a knife to break through her skin and abdominal muscles and insert them into her liver. Blood flows out due to gravity. He turned the knife in a small circle and dug out a cylindrical sample from his liver. He forgot to wear rubber gloves. His right hand and wrist were stained with corpse blood.
At this time, Muyangbe heard again that another nurse was sick at home. She was on the verge of death and pregnant with a child. Muyangbe took a sample of the pregnant woman's blood, but was surprised to find that her blood could not clot.
Just as she was about to return, a nun shyly approached Muyangbe. She was Sister Miriam, a nurse in a hospital.
"I have a fever and I have a headache."
She whispered to Muyangbe.
△ Sister Miriam
03 Rotten samples
Muyangbe ran into the lab with the samples, made several extremely thin liver slices, placed them under a high-magnification microscope, and dripped blood samples on several Petri dishes. He was looking for the yellow fever virus and typhoid bacillus.
But the organization has become a mess of meat. There's nothing to see. Yellow fever cannot be ruled out, but it cannot be determined.
On the other side, in the hospital of the capital, Sister Miriam was bleeding profusely.
A few days earlier, she had been taken to the capital by Muyangbe. However, her condition quickly deteriorated. The rash on the body darkened in color, like bruises. The eyes turn bright red. Bleeding in the gums and intestines. Blood poured into her body, but poured out of her intestines. As a result, the hospital had to assign an additional nurse named Mayinga to take care of her.
At the same time, the results of the Petri dish came out, and there were no typhoid bacillus growing on it. Therefore, this disease is not typhoid fever.
Then the news came: Sister Miriam had died.
Images came to Muyangbe's mind as he investigated the disease in Yambuku. He could see, even feel, the blood of the corpse flowing through his fingers, dripping down his wrists.
The graphic is irrelevant, the source watermark
04 Virus X: Human eraser
"This is a serious and contagious disease,"
Dr. Lupper stood on a table in the market and continued in the local language,
"How does it spread? It is spread through contact with sweat, saliva, and other bodily fluids. ”
In October, as Sister Miriam was dying in a hospital in the capital, Lupper came to Yambuku to investigate the strange disease.
The three doctors visited 17 towns and villages around the parish hospital, preached to the people in search of the virus X, and recommended ancient laws — the traditional methods that local residents have used for centuries to deal with smallpox — not to touch the sick, not to embrace the dead, to bury them immediately after death, and to follow the ancient laws.
At this time, Blood Samples of Sister Miriam were airlifted to national laboratories in Belgium, national laboratories in the United Kingdom, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States.
In the CDC Special Pathogens Division, scientists have found that the virus is shaped like a poisonous snake. Long snakes, braids, branches, forks like the letter Y, meandering curves like lowercase g, curved shapes like the letter U, rings like the number 6. One of the typical shapes is named "Shepherd's Scepter".
An Ebola virus particle with a "shepherd's cane" structure, but a hyperbolic cane, pictured on October 13, 1976, by Frederick M. Thompson, who was then working at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A. Murphy
It's an unknown pathogen, a new virus.
It has been proposed to name it "Yambuku virus," but the discoverers suggest that it be named after the river that flows through the land, the Ebola River.
1932, Ebola River. Image courtesy of Pierre Rollin. Source: National Information Center
Ebola is one of the highest-level viruses in the world and is far more ferocious than HIV. It is a "biosafety -4" level pathogen. It is mainly transmitted through body fluids and blood, and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, skin color changes, internal and external bleeding, fever and other symptoms. The main causes of death are stroke, myocardial infarction, hypovolemic shock, or multiple organ failure.
The incubation period is usually only 5 to 10 days. Mortality rates range from 50% to 90%. Currently, there is no effective vaccine or treatment regimen.
This is a virus that can wipe out humans.
For this reason, Ebola is also known as the "human eraser".
05 Sentencing of the death penalty
In Yambuku, Luber delivered a baby, but the baby did not breathe.
He ripped off the surgical mask, leaned over the baby, and covered the baby's nose and mouth with his mouth. He blew a few breaths gently, expanding the baby's lungs little by little. A look of shock slowly crept up his face. He suddenly realized what he was doing. But his mouth still did not leave the baby's nose and mouth.
The baby cried and exhaled Lupper's breath. The baby is still alive.
"Doctor, do you know what you did?"
The nun said softly.
"Now I know."
Lupper said.
His mouth, nose and cheeks were covered with mucus, amniotic fluid and blood flowing from the incision or birth canal. This is a body fluid that may contain viruses. But he still held the baby in front of him and stared. After he followed the standard procedure of cardiopulmonary resuscitation of the newborn, doctors should observe the baby for three minutes. This is to ensure that the baby can breathe on its own.
Before childbirth, the whites of a pregnant woman's eyes are bright red and diffuse bleeding. This reminds Lupper of Sister Bieta, who died of the virus after delivering a seriously ill pregnant woman.
But, in that instant, he forgot himself and acted out of human and physician instinct.
He knew very well what he had just done.
I had just pronounced my own death sentence, Lupper thought to himself.
06 The retreat of the virus
On October 27, 1976, the radio first reported lupper's death.
Lupper made his greatest sacrifice in the fight against the virus in Yambuku. He was infected with the virus, and his condition progressed so quickly that it crushed his body.
Wait a minute...... The radio got it wrong. At about 2 p.m. on October 27, Lupper was unaware of his death.
He opened the door lightly, threw down his luggage, picked up the children, hugged and kissed them. Then he went into the living room and slumped into a chair. He was exhausted and, other than that, it felt good.
A few days ago, he had experienced a panic he had never experienced in his life.
But after 48 hours, the mother and baby are still alive and appear to be fairly healthy. The mother simply developed malaria.
Finally, the mother and baby are discharged home.
As for Muyangbe, he has not had an illness caused by Ebola. He was severely exposed to infected blood several times, but has survived to this day, becoming one of the world's leading experts on Ebola.
In mid-October, Nurse Mayinga died of the virus at the age of 23. The virus isolated from her blood, the Mayinga isolate known as Zaire Ebola virus, is stored in an ultra-low temperature freezer in a CDC level IV laboratory in the United States and is immortal.
Her remains are buried in the village where she was born.
In 1976, the Ebola virus hit 55 villages around parish hospitals; it swept through hospitals, killing the vast majority of nurses. Within 11 weeks, 318 people became infected, of which 280 died. The case fatality rate is as high as 88%.
After the rapid killing, the virus inexplicably dissipated.
△ Scene in the village of Yambuku, Zaire, in 1976
图源：Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp(ITM)
When it comes to who first discovered Ebola, Lupper believes it should not be attributed to scientists.
"The people of Zaire have discovered Ebola. They found it with their bodies. ”
He smiled.
Science has the meaning of death.
Death is hope... All we can do is at least love life that is still there.
Because, every day is a miracle.
Resources
[1] By Dobson. The Illustrated History of Diseases: 7,000 Years of Influencing World History. Translated by Su Jingjing. Beijing:Jincheng Publishing House, 2016.
[2] by Richard Preston. Blood: The Past, Present and Future of Ebola[M]. Translated by Yao Xianghui. Shanghai:Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2020.
[3] By Preston. Blood plague: the story of Ebola[M]. Translated by Yao Xianghui. Shanghai:Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2016.
[4] Etymologia: Ebola. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 Nov[cited 2021 Dec 28]. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2111.ET2111
Collecting
My story with illness
Throughout the century-old epidemic history, diseases have been affecting the development of human society. In addition to grand narratives, the impact of illness on individuals often flashes warmth and kindness.
The son of an AIDS couple got married, and the couple specially sent joy candy to the Shenzhen Red Ribbon Center;
A grandmother was diagnosed with COVID-19, and overnight, "Come on Auntie! Early recovery", many blessings appeared on the website of the restaurant where she helped;
A public health doctor who supported the relocation work in various places returned home. He found the child writing on the blackboard, "Welcome home!" Daddy is handsome";
There were also patients who were once desperate, who took the bus for several hours, just to say to the doctor in person, "It's good to be alive."
Life sea, have you ever had an unforgettable event due to illness? What have you lost? And what did you get?
Welcome to click and share your experience.
Source: Shenzhen Disease Control
Editor: Lina Zhou
Editor-in-charge: Chen Guangtai
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