EBOLA PROJECT PART 3

NANCY JAAX pg 76
SEPTEMBER 26, 1983
Lab Description
This will be my first time in a biosafety level 4 lab. I will
enter a lab full of monkeys injected with the ebola virus
and two healthy monkeys that are separated from the

rest, and because of this, I will have to wear a full body

positive pressure suit. Today i will be testing any dead

monkeys to see the damage that ebola has done to them.

Procedure
1. Put on all safety wear
2. INspect all the monkeys

3. If a dead-looking monkey is spotted,

look for any signs that it is still alive

without touching it

4. Put your hand in the cage and pinch the

monkeys toe. Look for any eye
movement.

5. If there isnt any eye movement, open the cage and make the monkey face away from you.
Then lift the monkey from the cage.

6. Carry the monkey to a biohazard container and place him inside.

7. Take the dead monkey to a necropsy room.
8. Put on another layer of gloves.

9. Check that you have all of the needed tools to dissect the monkey.
10. Cut open the monkeys and tie up blood vessels.
11. Clean up any other blood with sponges.
12. Wash hands frequently.

13. After you are finished, decontaminate everything.

Results
IN the monkey that we opened up, it was filled with blood. We took samples of various organs,
tissues and bones. The lab was not able to be fully complete. During dissecting the monkey, i was

made aware of a hole in my glove, and that there was a liquid touching my hand. I had to leave the
lab and decontaminate myself. Johnson was able to clean up the lab for me. Once I had

decontaminated myself and got out of the lab, i realized that it was my own blood and not the blood
with the ebola virus in it.

EBOLA PROJECT PART 3

GENE JOHNSON
1988 SPRING
Lab Description
We are taking the lab up Mount
Elgon and into Kitum Cave. The
Ebola and marburg virus is what
we are looking for, and it is said
that its origins start in Kitum
Cave. They are scary viruses for
sure, and we do not know if they
can travel through the air yet, so
we are in Racal Suits. We are bringing few animals with us, monkeys and guinea
pigs, to see if they get infected with marburg or ebola. We hope to find what
organism ebola started in.

procedure
1.

Take the animals that are not

native to the area up the mountain
to Kitum Cave in stages (so the
animals can adjust).

2. Set up tarps around the cave to take

chemical showers and to avoid the
risk of contamination.
3. Set up traps around and in Kitum
Cave to capture native animals.

4. Set up avalanche poles on trail to kitum cave so workers do not get lost.
5. Set the non-native animals all along the trail and below the bat colonies
that inhabit the cave.
6. Put sticky paper along the cracks of the cave and light traps in the caves to
catch any insects.
7. Dissect any organisms that you catch in the cave and take samples of blood
and tissue.
8. Freeze the samples in liquid nitrogen to preserve them.
9. Test the samples for Marburg and Ebola.
10. Test the people in the towns for the viruses and their livestock.
11. Check for symptoms of the sickness for the animals in the cages for 30 days.
12. Euthanize the animals in the cages and test them for the virus.

Results
Unfortunately, we did not find the ebola or marburg virus. Our non-native
animals did not get infected and we did not find the viruses in any of the native
organisms that we captured. The people of the towns below tested negative for
the viruses and their livestock did too. We were not able to get tissue or blood
samples from any of the larger animals, including cape buffalo, leopards and
elephants, and in the end we were not able to publish any new information on the
ebola and marburg virus.

EBOLA PROJECT PART 3

KARL JOHNSON
1976
Lab Description
Today I will be examining the blood of a nun
with an unknown agent within it. We were

able to get small samples of the blood from

Porton Down, a man that works at the

English lab. We hope to find what agent killed

the nun.

Procedure
1.

Open the box that has the test tubes with the blood in it.

2. Make sure that you are wearing

gloves before handling the tubes.

3. Take a few droplets of blood

from the tubes and place them

in flasks with monkey cells in
them.

4. Observe the monkey cells.

5. Test the rest of the blood for

viruses.

6. If virus found, identify the shape of it.

7. Isolate the strain of the virus.

Results
While testing the nuns blood there was a virus found that looked similar to a
worm, and there was many of these viruses within the sample of blood. The
monkey cells that were mixed with the blood popped and died. When looking at
the shape of the virus, it look like many different squiggles. Patricia Webb ran the
test for the Marburg virus, but it was a new strain. We isolated the virus and
named the new organism Ebola.

EBOLA PROJECT PART 3

DAN DALGARD
NOVEMBER 10, 1989
Lab Description
All of my monkeys seem to be dying, so today I will be
dissecting the dead monkeys. I will record what I
observe inside the monkeys, but hopefully it is
nothing more than a disease that can be treated
with some medication.

Procedure
1.

Take the dead monkeys to the examination

room.

2. Observe their physical condition before opening

them.
3.

Open up the monkey and observe what is

inside.

4. Preserve samples of mucus and other parts of

the monkey.
5. Record how many monkeys are dying each day.

Results
While dissecting the monkeys, I observed that the monkeys had enlarged spleens that were hard as
rocks. The animals also had abrupt anorexia, but they had more body fat than most monkeys in the wild.
My monkeys were dying every day, around three a night. I decided to call experts at Fort Detrick,
because the monkeys were dying rapidly and were showing odd physical conditions.