It started in the forest.

A man from the village Bena-monyi had been in the forest hunting. He came to an area where there were dead birds and mammals on the ground and he ate some. Two weeks later he developed severe abdominal pain and fever and was taken to a small mission hospital where he subsequently died. He was an important individual and many attended his funeral. All 27 persons who handled his corpse subsequently developed the same symptoms.

Caption: A child is taken to an isolation ward with Ebola

Those who fell ill wondered if evil spirits from the dead man had cast a spell on them. Some went to traditional healers seeking relief from the spirits; others visited church structures hoping to be purified. None of these efforts worked, and two weeks later all 27 were dead. Those who took care of the 27 then became ill and the virus spread from village to village. Some of the sick left their villages and traveled to larger towns seeking sophisticated care; others with the means took a bus into the city to visit better equipped medical facilities. Within two months an entire province was in the midst of a full fledged epidemic of unknown causes.

Because of the proximity of the area to previous outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever (also known as "Ebola") 10 to 12 years ago, some wondered if this was Ebola or Marburg. Others postulated typhoid or dysentery since those who died had symptoms of severe diarrhea and dehydration. The government called for help, and our health team was one of the first to respond; sending a plane and supplies into this very isolated area of Congo, nearly six hundred miles from home. We were alarmed at the number of deaths in rural clinics and hospitals, the numbers exceeding what had been reported. When the samples we had brought back and sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested positive for Ebola, we knew this would only get worse.

Caption: Preparing to walk into town with members of CDC Atlanta after landing in Luebo

I flew back to the epicenter, ground zero, a week later, this time with a team from the CDC in Atlanta well-equipped with the latest protective gear and ultra-filter masks. Things have escalated since last week, but the Congolese doctors and nurses on the ground are now using the gloves, masks, and gowns we had dropped off a week earlier. A nurse who had been exposed just before our last trip subsequently came down with characteristic symptoms and was dying; as was a 13-year old boy in the bed next to her who had cared for his dying father; and was now too dying. The number of tabulated deaths is close to 200, but those are only people who died in hospitals or clinics and were counted. We have no ideas how many more remained at home or died in the forest where large numbers have fled hoping to avoid this fatal virus.

“What is the cause of this disease which is bringing so much death upon us” we were asked by people in the town of Mweka, which recorded some of the first cases; “an evil spirit, a contaminant in the water; a germ from deep in the forest?” The microbial agent or virus may have come from afar, but the behavior or misjudgment that brought the disease to humans is close to home.

That village hunter knew he was not supposed to eat dead animals, but he was hungry; and the consequences of that single act are wreaking havoc in our midst today.

Whose fault is this epidemic? The fault lies with all of us: the hunter who ate what he should not have, the family who washed a dead body and did not wash themselves, a system that allows health clinics and hospitals to operate without gloves, running water or soap, and a response that was initially misguided and late.

Who pays the price?...we all do and in many forms: the economic cost, the risks to those who travel into the hot zone, the anxiety, the anguish, and the most extracting price, life itself. The comfort I take home, as I return to Kinshasa on this second flight from the epicenter, is that one greater than us has paid the ultimate price which will not only wipe away the ravages of diseases such as Ebola, but the ravages and consequences of personal sin; especially my own.. It is faith alone that purifies.

-- Bill Clemmer