THIS BOOK WOULD NOT have been possible without the cooperation and support of dozens of people who worked to confront the Ebola outbreak, in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, in Geneva at the World Health Organization (WHO), at the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).My thanks go to all of them, including—but not limited to—Ron Klain, Anthony Fauci, Tom Frieden, Amy Pope, Gayle Smith, Rajiv Shah, Jeremy Konyndyk, Randy Schoepp, Robert Garry, Senator Chris Coons, Fabian Leendertz, Chris Dye, Julio Frenk, Lieutenant Colonel Ross Lightsey, Colonel Brian Gentile, Captain Jeff Kugelman, and Major General Gary Volesky. I was fortunate enough to speak with Hans Rosling, the Swedish physician and statistician, several months before he passed away in February 2017.
Among the dozens of U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations that mobilized to fight the outbreak, three were particularly generous with their time: the CDC Foundation, and its former president Charlie Stokes; Global Communities, where Piet deVries and Brett Sedgewick sat for long interviews; and World Vision, and the unfailingly gracious David Robinson.
At the CDC, Leisha Nolan, Barry Fields, Peter Kilmarx, John Brooks, David Blackley, Joe Woodring, Kimberly Lindblade, Dan Martin, John Redd, and Blanche Collins endured hours of questions. Benjamin Haynes, Erin Sykes, and Mansi Das helped set up interviews and graciously dealt with a thousand fact-check requests. At USAMRIID, Caree Vander Linden organized an eye-opening visit to Fort Detrick, where Colonel Gentile, Schoepp, Captain Kugelman, David Norwood, Travis Warren, and others patiently explained the science. Captain Michael Schmoyer of the U.S. Public Health Service donated his time as well. At the White House, Peter Boogaard, Ned Price, and Eric Schultz helped with background and arranging interviews. Max Gleischman, who accompanied UN Ambassador Samantha Power on her trip to West Africa, provided insights into the international response at the United Nations. Lieutenant Colonel Lightsey spent hours on the phone answering questions.
I leaned heavily on contemporaneous on-the-ground reporting from journalists including Joshua Hammer, who documented the heartbreaking final days of Sheik Umar Khan; Richard Preston, writing in the New Yorker; Bryan Burrough, who reported in Vanity Fair on the response to the outbreak in Dallas; Norimitsu Onishi, who reported from the ground for months for the New York Times; and others. WHO, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the CDC all documented their own work, much of which I used to give the fullest possible picture. Preston himself may have planted the seeds of this book two decades ago with his own book, The Hot Zone, and the subsequent movie version, Outbreak, which I still remember seeing in middle school. I was inspired by authors whose books have covered previous outbreaks, including Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague, and David Quammen’s Spillover.
At Brookings Institution Press, my thanks to editorial director William Finan and managing editor Janet Walker for their interest in this story, and for dealing with a nervous first-time author who probably sent them too many drafts. I’m grateful to my colleague Ashley Perks, design director at The Hill, who designed the beautiful map of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Matthew Carnicelli, of Carnicelli Literary Management, provided valuable guidance as this book came into being.
And thanks, as well, to the mentors who have shepherded my career in journalism: Chuck Todd, who gave me my first job and trusted me to help his own book project; Bob Cusack; Steven Ginsberg; and too many more to count. Cynthia Wilson, my mother, taught me how to write as I grew up. Bart Wilson, my father, struck the delicate balance between encouraging me and offering constructive criticism. My wonderful wife Veronica didn’t let me give up when my writing struggled, and our son Max, who joined us as this book was being finalized, is an incredible gift.
There is no way to compile the stories of the thousands of people, Liberians, Sierra Leoneans, Guineans, Americans, Brits, and French, who raced toward the fire when others ran away, or to tell the stories of the more than 28,000 people who fell victim to Ebola, and the holes left behind by the 11,000 who died. One can hope that the vaccine finalized in late 2016 will mean there are no more stories of future Ebola outbreaks to tell.
I am incredibly grateful to all who participated in this project.