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December 1989

Monkey House Nuked by USAMRIID

In December 1989, USAMRIID

arrived in Reston, Virginia to nuke the
extremely lethal Ebola virus that had
become prominent in the Reston Primate
Quarantine Unit, or the monkey house.

The Reston Primate Quarantine Unit housed

the Ebola virus.

The Ebola virus is a lethal killer: 9

out of 10 infected individuals will die
from the virus. Not only that, the
symptoms of Ebola are very unpleasant.
The most common symptoms include
hemorrhaging all over the body, vomiting
and coughing blood, and having the
bodys organs begin to liquify.

It has been determined that the

Ebola virus arrived in the US through
monkey shipments to the monkey
house. The monkeys came from the
Philippines, where it seems as if an
Ebola outbreak may be occurring.
In response to this outbreak on
American soil, the United States
Department of Agriculture will
increase the testing done on imported
monkeys. This is to insure that another
outbreak of a deadly virus does not
occur again.
USAMRIID, or the United States
Army Medical Research Institute for
Infectious Diseases, is usually in
charge of researching biological
weapons against soldiers. In a turn of
events, the CDC, or Centers for
Disease Control, will take over human
cases, while USAMRIID will take
care of the monkey house.

USAMRIID is located in Fort Detrick,

Frederick, Maryland.

An image of the Ebola virus from an electron

microscope. Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it
has the appearance of thread.

Nuking is a term used by

USAMRIID faculty that means
completing sterilizing a location. It
will be done by using a large amount
of bleach on every surface in the
monkey house, and then finishing off

by placing crystals containing

formaldehyde gas on frying pans; bleach
and formaldehyde are both very
effective tools used for sterilization..
According to Jerry Jaax, the head of
the Reston Monkey House mission and
an expert at USAMRIID, The nuking
process is fool-proof. Due to the air-tight
rooms and hallways inside the monkey
house, the formaldehyde gas will be able
to seep into every nook and cranny,
completely eliminating the Ebola virus.
Not only that, but the gas will stay inside
the monkey house for three whole days
to ensure every trace of the Ebola virus
is eliminated.
In order to successfully nuke the
monkey house, the infected monkeys
will, unfortunately, have to be
euthanized. More than 600 monkeys will
have to be terminated to ensure Ebola
does not spread.
In terms of safety, USAMRIID has
teams of experts on the job; they know
exactly what they are doing and how to
do what they are doing in the most
efficient and precautionary way possible.
A statement was released by
USAMRIID saying the mission, and by
extension the crisis of the Ebola virus,
would be over by the end of December.
With the experience of this almostcatastrophic event, USAMRIID is
studying the virus to try and learn how
to create a vaccine. For now, the United
States is Ebola-free.
-Bruno Aguado