In the spring of 1995 a deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus swept through Kikwit, Zaire, killing 77 percent of those who fell ill. No one stayed in the infectious "hot zone" longer than NOVA's production team, which filmed the inside story of the battle to contain one of the most feared diseases on the planet.
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00:00Tonight on NOVA, inside an outbreak of Ebola.
00:05I was very scared that this could get out of control.
00:08We walked through the streets and people were dying.
00:11Is this virus a threat to the entire world?
00:14I think there's a very real possibility that Ebola could come out of Africa to the West.
00:20NOVA enters the hot zone with the team assigned to isolate and contain this deadly emerging virus.
00:27Plague fighters.
00:52These bodies are too hot to touch.
00:55The remains of a disease so virulent, so fearsome, that funeral rites are abandoned and bodies are left for crude mass burials by corpse disposal squads.
01:07Kick with Zaire, April 1995.
01:10One outbreak in one community in one country.
01:14But could it become the next plague?
01:20We have no protection from these diseases.
01:23We cannot be isolationists in our thinking anymore.
01:26The world is a small community of nations and when one coughs, nobody sleeps.
01:33In Zaire, they're using quarantines and a public health campaign.
01:37The government of Zaire took fresh steps today to stop the spread of a lethal virus.
01:42It is a terrifying killer.
01:44There is no vaccine and no cure.
01:46The survival rate here is zero.
01:48Blood and tissue samples taken from the victims are rushed to scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
02:03Within hours, their worst fears are realized.
02:10The killer is Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses on earth.
02:16It can cause a human host to bleed to death in a matter of days.
02:21I think there's a very real possibility that Ebola could come out of Africa to the west.
02:28So we've got to get to the bottom of what controls the circulation of this virus
02:33and what controls its ability to hop over into humans
02:37and what controls its possibilities for spread.
02:42Ebola is a scientific enigma.
02:45Since little is known about how it's transmitted,
02:48once an outbreak begins,
02:51no place on earth is safe.
02:54The CDC sounds the alarm
02:56and a medical SWAT team from all over the world converges on Kikwit,
03:01ground zero of the outbreak.
03:04Ebola is a formidable enemy.
03:08These scientists are risking their lives on the front line of the battle.
03:13Their mission is to stop the virus and find out where it came from.
03:17They greet each other with the Kikwit handshake, elbow to elbow, to minimize contact.
03:33As the scientists make their way from the airport,
03:36they find themselves in a city gripped by terror.
03:40The fear of Ebola is spreading.
03:57Thousands are trying to flee.
03:59But a military quarantine has been imposed.
04:02The international team sets up a command post.
04:09They join forces with a group of Zairean doctors who have flown in from the capital.
04:14We're very glad to meet so many courageous people from abroad.
04:28It's what inspires us and encourages us to fight this to the end.
04:33Our families were in tears when we left the capital, Kinshasa, to come here,
04:38because they knew we were traveling towards death.
04:40My wife believes in reincarnation, so the first thing she said was,
04:47if you die over there, I'll kill you, which wasn't very, you know, didn't carry a lot of weight.
04:52And then she says, if you die over there, I will hunt you down through the ages
04:57and your future lives and we'll kill you.
05:00So I'm being very careful.
05:02The first priority is clear.
05:07Find every case and isolate it.
05:10The only way the epidemic can be stopped.
05:13We need to talk about it in terms of forms.
05:16An epidemiologist with the CDC, Dr. Ali Khan,
05:20establishes procedures for documenting every victim.
05:24Missing even a single one could spell disaster.
05:31Missing from here because I don't have any form, but you say you know about that.
05:34Yes, yes.
05:35Well, but they're missing from here, but there's no form on that thing.
05:39The team fans out across the city to look for new cases.
05:45Along the way, they hope to gather information that will help them understand this mysterious virus.
05:52This is an incredible opportunity.
05:55There's not an Ebola outbreak very often.
05:58And I just have to keep remembering, do the surveillance as it contributes to disease control.
06:03So you're very tempted to go off in 20 different directions and start 20 different studies at the same time.
06:11This is not the first time that Ebola has struck Zaire.
06:16Almost 20 years before, in 1976, an outbreak erupted in a hospital in the town of Yambuku, 1,000 kilometers to the north.
06:26The disease spread rapidly, killing 9 out of 10 of its victims, leaving nearly 400 dead.
06:35An international team arrived late and had little opportunity to investigate the outbreak.
06:45The epidemic was stopped when village elders ordered the temporary abandonment of traditional burial ceremonies, which involved touching the corpse.
06:57Instead, they quarantined villages and burned down the huts of the dead.
07:02The 1995 epidemic also began at a hospital.
07:09When we got there, the hospital was essentially deserted, the major hospital in Kikwit.
07:15There was a scattered patient here or there, many of whom had not been fed for days on time.
07:21And we walked through that hospital the first night and it's sort of memories that you retain for a lifetime.
07:27The local situation was so bad on the medical point of view that we, at least two of us, were involved in the cleaning of the ward.
07:39But there were still dead people in the building and the condition of work was very bad.
07:47safety protection for the, for the worker were absent or not available for them.
08:14The outbreak was traced back to a surgical procedure performed on a young lab worker named Kim Fumu.
08:20Three nurses who had assisted at the operation soon fell ill.
08:25Taking no special precautions, fellow hospital workers attended to their needs,
08:30washing them and coming into contact with their bodily fluids.
08:35Within weeks, 36 hospital workers, doctors, nurses and attendants had died and most of the survivors had fled.
08:47The government asked Zairean doctors for volunteers to come here.
08:53For at least two weeks, they didn't find any.
08:57But after a while we said that we'll go to investigate and do research.
09:05It's at times like this that you can be part of medical history in the making.
09:11We said to ourselves, we're doctors. It's like the army. We're soldiers. We'll go and face the danger.
09:27Outside the hospital, the grieving families of the sick and dying pray for their recovery.
09:43While the medical staff takes elaborate precautions to avoid infection.
09:47Despite the sweltering heat, the safety procedures established by the international team require four layers of protective gear.
09:57A moat filled with bleach is the only barrier between the Ebola ward and the outside world.
10:09Unlike HIV, Ebola is a hardy virus that can survive outside the human body.
10:16Any contact with patients or their surroundings may prove fatal.
10:21The virus has been found in tears, blood, even on the surface of the skin.
10:26Internally, it attacks the vital organs, often causing massive bleeding inside and out.
10:34There is no cure or treatment.
10:37Death usually comes within 10 days.
10:46She's in the terminal stages. There's nothing to be done.
10:51There's her husband.
11:07Patients in the early stages of the disease can only look on at what is likely to be their fate.
11:26This week alone, there have been 52 new deaths in Kikwit.
11:41The plague fighting efforts of the international team have not begun to take hold.
12:00The terrifying effects of this disease were seen for the first time in Europe.
12:09During the summer of 1967, in the quiet German town of Marburg, workers at a pharmaceutical plant began dying of a mysterious ailment.
12:19The victims developed a strange rash. Their skin tore easily. The eyeballs filled up with blood.
12:28Their faces became fixed, zombie-like.
12:33They vomited black fluid and discharged blood from every orifice.
12:40From the initial headache to death, one week.
12:44The cause was a virus, a close relative of Ebola.
12:49Lab workers became infected as a result of handling the blood and tissue of African monkeys.
12:56No one had seen anything like it.
12:59It was a terrible kind of disease because all organs are involved.
13:08The liver, the brain, kidneys, all.
13:14And it's a failure of every organ taken together.
13:19So they suffer extremely.
13:22It must have been the same in the Middle Ages.
13:27You don't know what happens and people die and know that they can get the disease from touching.
13:39In 1989, Ebola made its way to the U.S.
13:43Residents of this Washington, D.C. suburb had no idea that one of the world's deadliest viruses had emerged in their midst.
13:51In a primate quarantine unit in Reston, Virginia, monkeys in one of the holding rooms suddenly began to die.
14:06Secretly, a military team entered the quarantine unit and killed all 60 monkeys in the infected room.
14:14The crisis heightened as monkeys began to die in a different room.
14:29It appeared that the virus was moving through the ventilating system.
14:33In response, the military killed all 400 monkeys, ending the outbreak.
14:40This new strain of Ebola had shown the potential to spread through the air.
14:45Had it been lethal in humans, it could have been catastrophic.
14:50Soon after the international team arrived, the epidemic in Kikwit exploded.
14:59The plague fighters worried they would not be able to stop it.
15:05I was actually very scared that this could get out of control.
15:19And there was no doubt that when you looked at the distribution of cases, it was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger every week.
15:25And that week, actually, there were 70-yard deaths in the community.
15:28I mean, you walked through the streets and people were dying.
15:30I mean, they were literally everywhere you walked, they were talking about people dying of Ebola.
15:35We were working as hard as we could.
15:37So that week, I was extremely scared that this thing may be getting out of control.
15:46I coined the term chain of death.
15:48And it was very characteristic what you would see happening in a family.
15:51And there were a number of such chains in the community where you would see one person become sick.
15:56And then you would see their spouse or primary caregiver become sick.
15:59And then four to five days later, their primary caregiver would become sick.
16:04And then you would just see this chain of death.
16:06And you could just track it through the family until it eventually terminated.
16:10The one who died on the 20th was the mother.
16:13And then the granddaughter died next.
16:18To break the chain of death, Ali Khan must track down all the cases and separate them from their families.
16:31This often meant interfering with the way people care for the sick and honor their dead.
16:37So how would she hear about these people being sick?
16:41Somebody would come in from the village?
16:43Another thing that was a factor in the outbreak is attending funerals.
16:47And we do know that during the preparation of a body, there's a lot of physical handling of the corpse.
16:53And then during the funeral itself, a large number of people may touch that body.
16:58And cultural things are difficult to change, obviously, because they're ingrained in the way people act.
17:02But what we had to do was simply say that if somebody dies of this disease,
17:07they immediately get put into a body bag, sprayed down with Lysol, popped in a coffin and buried deep.
17:12Oh gods, we ask you to be with us in this hard time.
17:24This hospital has been our refuge and now the devil has taken it.
17:28Please deliver us.
17:30The Red Cross team has the most thankless job of the epidemic.
17:34Members are shunned by their neighbors and regarded as pariahs in the villages.
17:46Their visit signals only tragedy.
17:48Their visit signals only tragedy.
17:50The black people have followed in a few days ago.
17:52The Red Cross team has the most
17:55The Red Cross team has the most
17:55When we visit a lot of cloths gone, our local government has started.
17:57The Red Cross team has the most
18:12The Red Cross team has the most
18:16The Red Cross team has the most
18:47If the Ebola virus were looking for somewhere to spread, it could find no better place than
19:13Kikwit. Kikwit is called a city, but it is more like a large rural village of some 400,000
19:21with no electricity and no running water. Public health and sanitation are limited,
19:27and the illiteracy rate is almost 50%. The local diet includes insects, monkeys, and
19:35rats, all suspected carriers of the virus.
19:39Under these conditions,
20:04the international team must somehow get the word out, avoid contact with the sick, or
20:10risk death. They organize a street-level education campaign. Banners are put up. The disease
20:17that makes your blood flow. This disease has no vaccine and no cure. You must protect yourself.
20:24It was very difficult to educate the public because there was no mass media. There was
20:29no TV. There was no radio. There was no newspapers. So everything had to depend on using alternative
20:36means to educate the community.
20:38This fever, this disease is harsh, and it's already killed many people. And I'm here to tell you that hiding
20:54patients won't help anybody.
20:56But what about the guy you buried over there? Now that it's raining, won't all this water
21:02spread the disease from the corpse through the neighborhood?
21:05Well, the Red Cross assured us that he was buried safely. He died in the outhouse and fell into the hole.
21:12It was very deep, so they buried him right there. Now, you shouldn't be scared. The Red Cross disinfected his grave and the surroundings.
21:19His remains can't come out, and his germs can't get you.
21:28Medical students are sent out into the community to identify new cases before entire neighborhoods become infected.
21:36There's only one way to do this in Kikwit, door to door.
21:41It looks like no one's home.
21:43They're here. They just left when they saw us coming.
21:47We're here to get some information.
21:52What's all this? I don't understand.
21:57Why are you coming to disturb people?
22:02We're students from the University of Bandungu.
22:06We're doing research. We want to know if anyone here is sick with Ebola.
22:11This is not right. I'm innocent. I don't know anything about it.
22:14I worked with the medical students here in town, and the stories that I'm hearing, it seems very natural to me, of the stigmatization, including the story of someone being killed because he was from Kikwit and was thought to have had contact.
22:30So it's natural to me that if you say to someone, tell us if you have Ebola, and we'll take you away from your family and put you in the hospital where you'll likely die and no one will want to visit you.
22:42So certainly people don't want to tell you because of the stigma.
22:46But hospitalizing the sick is the only way to stop the disease.
22:52In the Ebola ward, Dr. Mupapa's team provides whatever human comfort they can, knowing few, if any, of their patients will survive.
23:02Each day as they leave, the medical staff is sprayed with stinging bleach, which kills the virus.
23:22Their protective clothing is burned to ensure that it won't be reused.
23:27But they can't so easily rid themselves of the images of the ward.
23:32I'm a newlywed. We have a child.
23:37My wife was really worried about me coming here, and she was pretty scared, especially when we found out that the disease can be transmitted from a man to a woman through sperm.
23:50I write her as often as I can to tell her that everything's okay so far and that we are taking safety measures and that there's nothing to worry about.
24:02When I read his letters, I feel better, but even so my heart is heavy.
24:09I will only be happy the moment he returns home.
24:14I pray every morning and every night.
24:19I'm really convinced that I'll return to Kinshasa alive.
24:23That's truly my most ardent wish.
24:27Look here. It's a picture of Daddy.
24:38Of course I'm afraid. He's touching sick and dying people every day.
24:45I'm terrified he's going to catch it.
24:48This is a disease that is merciless.
24:52I pray to God that he doesn't get sick.
24:55I'm convinced that he won't get sick. I'm sure of that now.
25:01Yet, people are still getting sick and still dying.
25:09Though fewer this week than last.
25:12The epidemic rages, but a corner has been turned.
25:37As night falls, the hit movie in Kikwit is a video called Ebola.
25:54Made by a local entrepreneur, it stars the Zairean doctors who have become local heroes.
26:00Although the video is projected from a broken down VCR, there isn't an empty seat in the house.
26:14Equally unable to escape the epidemic even for a few hours, the medical team spends the evening swapping the latest stories.
26:22But four days before he got sick, there was a young woman admitted for surgery that was pregnant.
26:31And when they opened her up, she had a hemorrhagic uterus.
26:34Not only was he there, but she died in the OR.
26:37As the scientists gain confidence in their management of the crisis, their research mission takes on a higher priority.
26:44One of the researchers is Dr. Robert Swanepoel, a South African virologist.
26:51He is driven by the idea of finding the source of the virus.
26:55When something like this happens, you're just drawn to it as to a magnet or a mosque to a candle.
27:00You must go and find out where the devil this thing came from, and we really don't know.
27:05But most scientists believe that Ebola's natural home is the rainforest.
27:11So this outbreak provides a critical opportunity to search for it in its natural setting.
27:17With rare diseases like Ebola, diseases that have not been properly studied, every epidemic has to be seen in two ways.
27:25It's an emergency to control the epidemic and save human lives.
27:30But at the same time, it's a responsibility to collect research data that will inform you about future epidemics.
27:39Between outbreaks, Ebola lives within one of the many thousands of insect or animal species that inhabit the rainforest.
27:47But scientists have never succeeded in identifying which one.
27:51It's really a medical curiosity in these places.
27:53I mean, where does it hold up and how does it pop up here again in Zaire after 20 years?
27:59That's what keeps a lot of us motivated and interested in this virus.
28:04I'm not sure what makes a good virologist.
28:07Certain Americans have sort of described the type of person I am as an old-fashioned, swamp-stomping epidemiologist, if you like.
28:17Bats have been found in the vicinity of previous outbreaks.
28:21But no one has ever found a bat with a trace of Ebola virus in its blood.
28:26This time, Robert Swanepoel hopes to make a breakthrough.
28:30Only when the natural host is identified will it be possible to predict where the virus might strike next.
28:51In each new blood sample is the possibility of an answer.
29:00But what happens when the virus makes its move from its animal host to a human being?
29:06What is its lethal strategy?
29:08Blood samples at different stages of the disease are collected by Dr. Pierre Rollin.
29:14We know nothing on Ebola because during the 76 outbreak, only few blood samples were taken.
29:20So our hope in this outbreak is to get enough samples from patients at different period of the disease.
29:29An outbreak every 20 years is not like working with a serial killer that have the same pattern all the time.
29:36The priority is to try to stop the outbreak first and then collect as much specimen that you can so you can learn something.
29:55Working in conditions far below standard laboratory safety levels,
29:59Roland risks his life handling samples which contain enough Ebola to kill thousands.
30:05Kikwit is still under siege.
30:27The Zahirians have been fighting this epidemic for ten weeks now.
30:34More than 200 people have died.
30:42The burials go on, but fewer than before.
30:49The number of new cases continues to drop.
30:53Every victim has been traced.
30:59The chain of transmission well documented.
31:04The end is in sight.
31:08Back at the command center, the epidemiologists analyze the accumulating data.
31:19Their efforts pay off with a dramatic breakthrough.
31:22They identify patient zero, the individual they believe contracted the disease.
31:28Not from another human being, but from a creature in the rain forest.
31:32All the cases have been charted on a timeline, tracing a path of destruction back to this very first known victim.
31:45He died four months before the first case appeared at the hospital.
31:49His name was Gaspar Minga.
31:56Gaspar Minga was a charcoal worker living in Kikwit.
32:01He is survived by his brother Pierre and his father Innocent.
32:05They treasured a picture of Gaspar's funeral, which is now the extraordinary portrait of the start of an outbreak.
32:15Gudo, Gaspar's son, is now dead.
32:21Michael, Gaspar's nephew, dead.
32:27Deceased.
32:28Deceased.
32:29Deceased.
32:30Deceased.
32:31Deceased.
32:32I don't know the origins of this disease.
32:36Only God knows.
32:37I'm not a scientist.
32:39I'm a person.
32:40I too hope to learn its origin.
32:48Somewhere in this vast forest lives an organism which harbors the Ebola virus.
32:54Now the international team can narrow down their search to the area surrounding Gaspar Minga's home and work.
33:02What we have probably is a disease that occurs in nature and very accidentally transfers to a human being.
33:13Now what we've done is to try and follow the so-called index case, the first person who was infected,
33:22and who essentially was the beginning of this terrible epidemic.
33:26They trace Minga's steps back to his last working place.
33:30This is a charcoal pit.
33:32It takes three months to do the entire process at one charcoal site,
33:37for which the man earns 15,000 Zaires, which is about three dollars.
33:41Three months hard work.
33:43The gentleman who was the index case here had nearly completed this pit.
33:49Rather, sadly, he left over here his hoe in the tree and a little bundle of cloth.
33:57And, of course, nobody will touch that now.
33:59Searching the area around Minga's charcoal pit, Paul Ryder and his colleague Russ Coleman use a goat as bait,
34:08hoping to determine whether an insect might be Ebola's carrier.
34:13This disease is a great enigma.
34:20It has appeared only a few times in history.
34:23In every case, the tremendous, contagious nature of the disease has captured people's imagination.
34:30When this whole expedition began, the safety issues were discussed at great length.
34:41There are certain behaviors that could put us at risk.
34:44We're out here now, and we're collecting insects, and it's a remote possibility.
34:48We're trying to avoid any bites or anything.
34:50We wear insect repellent.
34:51We've got our clothes treated with permethrin to keep them off.
34:54So we're trying to minimize any of that risk.
34:57This is a challenge of a kind that is very hard to describe.
35:06Of course, there's human tragedy involved.
35:09And we would like to think that the work that we do will help alleviate that kind of tragedy in the future.
35:16It's natural history in its most vibrant form.
35:19We're looking at all the creatures of the forest
35:23and trying to understand how they interact in this one particular way.
35:40Other teams set out to trap rodents and small mammals in the hope that one of their captured specimens will prove to be Ebola's natural host.
35:48They turn their field camp into a laboratory as they prepare to measure and dissect their samples.
36:03Villagers look on with amusement as the team cautiously handles animals local people eat for lunch.
36:22Many people have looked at specimens in prior outbreaks and no one has found anything yet.
36:34So I suppose from that point of view, it means that our chances of success are slim.
36:39But on the other hand, if no one ever looks, no one's ever going to find.
36:43So we keep our fingers crossed and we think that we're the ones that are going to find it.
36:56There's a dead body in that house.
36:58I asked you yesterday if anyone was sick. You said no.
37:04Back in town, a crowd gathers. Medical students have found a new victim.
37:09To them, Ebola means bleeding. If they aren't bleeding, they're not sick.
37:15Now we find a dead body.
37:18The education campaign has turned out to be a double-edged sword.
37:24No longer mourned in traditional ceremonies, some victims are abandoned by their families,
37:30who fear any contact may prove fatal.
37:39The medical students must make sure that no one touches the body, which is teeming with Ebola.
37:47Close the door. Tie it shut.
37:49Close the door.
37:54Aware of the risks, but not equipped to handle them, they are forced to improvise.
38:02Wait, wait.
38:12Don't take them off like that, no.
38:14I know.
38:15Put them over there in the hole.
38:21Put them over there in the hole.
38:23No, we should burn them.
38:27Just take them and throw them over there.
38:32Yes, I know it's dangerous.
38:36Throw it in the hole. It's deep enough.
38:38It's dangerous for the kids.
38:41No, no, no. It's deep enough.
38:46Can't we burn them?
38:49Their function now understood, the Red Cross teams are greeted with relief.
39:03Elaborate funeral rites have given way completely to chillingly efficient disposal.
39:24The End
39:45Here we go.
40:15Although Ebola is a ruthless killer, it is not totally without mercy.
40:22The medical team now finds that one in five patients are still alive.
40:27They survived Ebola.
40:32These convalescents no longer show symptoms of the illness,
40:36but they are still confined to the hospital because the virus remains in their blood
40:41and can be transmitted through bodily fluids.
40:44No one knows how these patients develop the strong immune response,
40:49the antibodies that save them.
40:57Since there is no cure for the virus, I know that God must have cured me.
41:01God cured me.
41:05Suddenly, a frightening new case arises.
41:12Yesterday, we admitted a new case, one of our nurses.
41:17She's here in the emergency ward now, and the clinical diagnosis is Ebola.
41:23To see a nurse with whom you've worked every day sick with this disease is terrible,
41:35and I really don't want to see her die.
41:41Nicole Organa worked alongside the doctors, always in full protective gear.
41:46Somehow, she became infected.
41:49The doctors suddenly feel vulnerable.
41:58The Zairean physicians devise a plan, one that is experimental.
42:03They know that the blood of survivors has antibodies against the virus.
42:07They reason that if they transfuse Nicole with that blood, perhaps those antibodies will save her.
42:16They take Nicole's blood to type it.
42:18Before deciding whether to proceed with their plan, they must find a convalescent with the same blood type.
42:24A few last cases show up in the isolation ward.
42:34The battle for Nicole's life may be critical for them.
42:38As they go about their rounds, the Zairean doctors know that with each passing hour, Nicole's chances for survival decline.
42:53Even as they help other patients, the doctors become increasingly convinced that they must execute their plan to save Nicole,
43:01and perhaps these final few patients as well.
43:08The foreign members of the team are against the treatment.
43:13There's basic risk in giving an individual blood products from someone else.
43:18There's a lot of infectious risk.
43:20There's HIV is very prevalent.
43:23There's hepatitis B, hepatitis C.
43:26Certainly in that setting, one of the greatest concerns would be if the person that you're treating doesn't have Ebola,
43:33if they have malaria or typhoid or something else,
43:36and the person that you're getting the transfusion from still has Ebola virus circulating in their blood and is infectious,
43:44that that would be the worst thing you could do is to give someone who didn't have Ebola, Ebola.
43:49The Zaireans test Nicole's blood and find a convalescent with matching type.
43:55Now they must make a decision.
43:58Knowing that the foreign doctors are opposed, they meet privately.
44:03What if we transfuse convalescent plasma to someone who doesn't have Ebola?
44:10What if our diagnosis is wrong?
44:12It's clearly a clinical case. It's obvious she has Ebola.
44:23We shouldn't doubt our diagnosis. We've seen so many cases now.
44:31We should at least wait until tomorrow.
44:33In the meantime, let's present and defend our position in front of the scientific community.
44:38What do you think?
44:39In America, they don't believe in transfusing patients with convalescent blood.
44:44Never mind, we should answer to ourselves.
44:47I think we have to try this experiment.
44:52Maybe not on every one of these last few cases, but at least on our nurse.
45:00Personally, I think we could have transfused her this morning.
45:03The diagnosis is clearly Ebola, so I don't see why we should wait another 24 hours.
45:13Okay, I think we all agree that we do the transfusion.
45:22And that we should do it as soon as possible.
45:24Their decision made, the doctors approach a convalescent patient whose blood type matches Nicole's.
45:35He agrees to cooperate.
45:38Without involving the foreign doctors, they collect his blood and get ready to transfuse.
45:43They have the resources only to do a quick AIDS test.
45:48Nicole runs the risk of contracting any other disease that may be in the donor's blood.
45:53The cure may kill her.
45:54Nicole is a subject in a life or death experiment.
46:11Similar procedures with animals have failed in the past.
46:15The doctors ask her to sign her consent before they proceed.
46:19The transfusion is interrupted by a doctor from the Belgian Institute of Tropical Medicine.
46:45The Zairian doctors press on.
46:50That night, Dr. Masamba, head of the Zairian team, defends the transfusion at a hastily convened international meeting.
47:02We felt compelled to try something new.
47:07There is no treatment. Tell us if there is something else we can do and we'll do it.
47:14But we all know there is nothing. That's why we did the transfusion.
47:19We asked our nurse if she wanted us to do the procedure and she consented in writing.
47:24As for transfusing whole blood, we simply don't have the means here to sterilize human plasma.
47:34We felt compelled to try something. Now we'll just wait and see what happens.
47:41Everyone waits to see whether Nicole will pull through.
47:44The tension is palpable.
47:47Four days after the transfusion, there seems to be improvement.
48:05I'm eating now, I go out, I wash myself, and I can get up without any help.
48:15Our nurse is doing better. I'm really relieved.
48:20I think that after Nicole, other people who get sick may want us to try this same treatment.
48:27And personally, I think it will work.
48:30A week later, Nicole is weak, but almost fully recovered.
48:35Encouraged by their success, the Zairian doctors transfuse eight more patients.
48:41Seven survive. The Western doctors remain unconvinced.
48:45It would not be my choice to have given these blood transfusions.
48:51On the other hand, with the pressure to do something, I can absolutely understand why these experiments were done.
48:59I think what's unfortunate, from my point of view, is that we'll never know whether this worked or not.
49:06There's other possible explanations that late in the epidemic, the virus may be less virulent after several passages through human hosts.
49:15There's a possibility that late in the epidemic, people were having less exposure, that there was some awareness, so people were being more careful, so they were getting smaller viral loads when they were getting infected.
49:28So the ideal thing would have been to have one group get the transfusions and have one group not get them or get a placebo transfusion.
49:34Unfortunately, it's not something we can study in humans. You certainly aren't going to give someone Ebola to do a trial like that. We have to wait for an epidemic situation to do that.
49:46The transfused patients are the last in the ward. No more cases appear. The epidemic is over.
49:55316 people had become infected with Ebola and 244 of them had died.
50:05The international team is getting ready to leave. The samples they collected will go to various labs for analysis.
50:21They may hold the clues that will help solve the Ebola mystery.
50:26It's a very, very difficult and critical period. We're in a transition. Everyone came to help. That's wonderful. They helped us a lot.
50:48And for that, we are very grateful to the international community. But now that the epidemic is over, we have to try to manage the crisis that caused this. And everyone is leaving.
51:03All that is going back? Yes. That too. Yes, that too.
51:08Don't mix up with what is arriving. Never mind.
51:12It's too bad you're leaving so soon. It's been 18 days. I've stayed longer than anyone else.
51:16Here in Kikwit, a hastily assembled team of Zairean and foreign scientists made medical history.
51:24In the battle against one of the world's deadliest viruses, they prevailed. At least for now.
51:31After the scientists have come and gone. After the media has come and gone. Kikwit is back to what it was before.
51:46When you have communities living in abject poverty, exposed to all the diseases, the diseases are going to recur and they will keep on recurring. And we have to turn our attention to that.
51:58At this point, I put my money on the bugs.
52:03On the bugs.
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