Ebola & Company: here come the killer viruses!
by Justin D. Long
"One problem with the disease was that the warning signs were equivocal, and her main concern was one of her patients. He was such a nice boy, but--but he was gravely ill, and Sister Jean Baptiste saw now that his fever had spiked to 40.4 degrees Celsius, and that was deadly enough, but the other signs were worse. The disorientation had gotten worse. The vomiting had increased, and now there was blood in it. There were indications of internal bleeding. All that, she knew, could mean one of several things--but the one she worried about was called Ebola Zaire... On the way out she rubbed her forehead. It must have been the heat. You never really got used to it, not if you came from northern Europe. Maybe an aspirin after she saw to her patient..."
"When it was all over, the floor, chair and walls in Sister M. E.'s hospital room were stained with blood. Someone who saw the room told me that after they took her body away (wrapped in many sheets), no one at the hospital could bear to go into the room to clean it up. The nurses and doctors didn't want to touch the blood on the walls and were frankly fearful of breathing the air in the room, too..."
Which one of the two paragraphs above is fictional? Or are both? Or are neither?
Medical teams, doctors, nurses, clinicians, and those just trained in emergency care--all can be found on the front lines of missionary involvement, deep in Africa and other "hot zones." What we often forget is the susceptibility of these missionaries to disease.
Of course, we all take our pills and get our vaccinations before going overseas on even the mildest of mission trips. When I was a young child I remember taking a trip to Haiti with my parents, and having to take huge pills (I would guess now they were for malaria). Whenever friends of mine go on short term trips they always talk about making certain their vaccinations are up to date.
But for some diseases, there are no vaccinations. In many books you can read--and in movies you'll see--there is talk of four levels of biohazard (0, 2, 3, 4). Level 2 is for diseases like HIV/AIDS: although they are killers, they are relatively difficult to contract.
Not so with Level 4 diseases, like Ebola. Once Ebola is in the blood stream, the war is lost. It's a disease, but it can't be fought off like a cold. It can do in ten days what days what AIDS takes ten years to accomplish. An aerial version of Ebola could feasibly circle the globe in six weeks, killing huge numbers of people. This and other level 4 diseases are simply human killing machines, and most are almost complete mysteries. We still don't know specifically how Ebola travels from person to person, but bodily fluids (like saliva, or blood) are extremely contagious carriers.
In the scenarios above, the first comes from Tom Clancy's fictional "Executive Orders," where two nuns contract Ebola and die from it. The second one, however, comes from "The Hot Zone," a true story of the outbreak of Ebola in Reston, Virginia (USA). Granted, in Virginia only monkeys died--but it proved Ebola could get outside of Third World countries.
This is a reality we have to face. This is another area where we must be absolutely committed to the task we have in front of us.
The virulence of these diseases are another reason why we need to be committed to World A. The residents are facing diseases like these and others, which can decimate entire villages, cities and countries in one generation. For them, there be no "next generation" to be reached with the Gospel.
Suggestions
- Every agency should have policies on dealing with virulent diseases, including AIDS (see our previous article) and the "hot" viruses like Ebola.
- Every missionary candidate should take the time to "count the cost." Are you willing to not be a martyr, but to die of a quick, painful disease? Many of the early missionaries did, and there's no reason why you won't be another case. How committed are you?
- Christians ought to continue supporting medical research into virulent diseases and their potential cures. These diseases threaten us all, particular thanks to the ease with which they can be converted into terrorist weapons.
- Every agency needs to have policies for ministry to disease-inflicted areas, particularly since these places have very little time to hear the Gospel.
