Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

The next spillover Quammen investigates occurred in Africa in 1996, in a small village on the Gabon/Congo border called Mayibout 2. Several villagers became ill after eating a chimpanzee. Eventually, 31 people in total became ill and 21 died, with a fatality rate of close to 70%. A disease specialist named Eric Leroy, based at the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville (CIRMF), determined that the disease was Ebola and that the initial case came from the chimp.

Quammen then turns to his own time in the region shadowing a field biologist named Mike Fay, who was surveying every wild animal within a 2,000-mile radius. Many of Fay’s assistants were from the area, and some had connections to the Mayibout 2 outbreak. They reported that all who became sick had touched the infected chimpanzee. The survivors made it clear that the outbreak had changed their habits: “to this day, he said, no one in Mayibout 2 eats chimpanzee” (58). The men also reported that 13 gorillas had also been found dead nearby, relying on local knowledge and rumor. Fay’s biological expedition relied on more precise counting and tallying of wildlife but ultimately led to the same conclusion: The gorilla population in the area was in rapid decline.