1995 Outbreak of Ebola Virus in Zaire Traced to Jehovah's Witness Family

Kenneson

The first case of Ebola raised its ugly head in 1976 in Zaire, Africa. It remained dormant until 1995 when it struck again. This time the virus was traced to one family. Several years ago I saw a documentary on that family (the Menga family). Maybe some of you remember it too. Gaspard Menga was the first to contract Ebola that year. Of the 23 members of the extended Menga-Nseke family, 13 died of Ebola between Jan. 6 and March 9, 1995. 4 died in Kitwit hospital and the deadly virus is suspected to have lurked there two months before erupting in mid-April when surgery on an infected lab technician spread Ebola to a dozen doctors and nurses. Before it was all over, some 120 people died.

The following link establishes the Jehovah's Witness connection. See "Ebola: Focus on one family."

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/explanatory-journalism/works/ebola12.html

For a detailed account of the spread of the disease, see "The Source? Ebola Victim's Funeral a Clue to Origin of Epidemic."

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/explanatory-journalism/works/ebola17.html

AK - Jeff

Yep. I remember that was the case. Menga was a witness who worked in the forest, making charcoal.

The 5-8-96 Awake states;

KIKWIT, Zaire, is a sprawling town on the fringe of a tropical rain forest. Forty-two-year-old Gaspard Menga Kitambala, who lived outside the city, was the only Witness of Jehovah in his family. Menga was a seller of charcoal. He prepared his charcoal deep in the forest, bundled it up, and carried it on his head to Kikwit.

On January 6, 1995, he felt ill. He fell twice on his way home from the forest. When he reached his home, he said that he had a headache and a fever.

Over the next few days, his condition deteriorated. On January 12, his family took him to Kikwit General Hospital. The Witnesses in Menga’s congregation helped the family to care for him at the hospital. Sadly, his condition worsened. He began to vomit blood. Blood flowed uncontrollably from his nose and ears. On January 15, he died.

Soon others in Menga’s family who had touched his body became sick. By early March, 12 people closely related to Menga had died, including his wife and two of their six children.

By mid-April, hospital staff and others began to sicken and die in a way similar to Menga and his family. Quickly the illness spread to two other towns in the region. Clearly, outside help was needed.

Professor Muyembe, Zaire’s top virologist, went to Kikwit on May 1. He later told Awake!: "We concluded that Kikwit was suffering from two epidemics: one was diarrhea caused by bacteria, and the other was a severe hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus. Of course, we needed to confirm this diagnosis. So we collected some blood from patients and sent it to be tested at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, U.S.A."

The CDC confirmed what Muyembe and other doctors in Zaire had already suspected. The disease was Ebola.

Scientists assumed that the first victim of the Kikwit epidemic was Gaspard Menga. But how was he infected? If it was by some animal, what species of animal was it? Logically, the answer might be found in the forest where Menga worked. Collection teams set 350 traps in places where Menga worked to prepare his charcoal. They captured rodents, shrews, toads, lizards, snakes, mosquitoes, sand flies, ticks, bedbugs, lice, chiggers, and fleas—a total of 2,200 small animals and 15,000 insects. Scientists, wearing protective gear, killed the animals with anesthetic gas. They then sent tissue samples to the United States, where they could be screened for the virus.

1995 Outbreak of Ebola Virus in Zaire Traced to Jehovah's Witness Family

Kenneson

AK - Jeff

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