In a remote town of Ingenta, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a patient with a still hidden identity, has Ebola-like symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, lays on her bed, with squabbling two toddlers frantic to run away from the prison-like hospital room waiting for the results of an Ebola test.
The patient only communicates through a clear plastic observation window. Her identity is undisclosed to keep her from being detested by citizens fearful of Ebola infection. Her children have also been tested, but so far, they are not showing any symptoms.
Vaccine and treatment have carried down the rate at which Ebola kills. The question, however, that is lingering is, "What if this woman doesn't have Ebola? What if, instead, she is patient zero of "Disease X," the first known infection of a new pathogen that could sweep the world as fast as Covid-19, but one that has Ebola's 50% to 90% fatality rate?"
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In Congo, Dr. Dadin Bonkole, the patient's physician, said, "We've all got to be frightened. Ebola and Covid were unknown. We have to be afraid of new diseases." With that being said, this is not superficial. This is backed by scientific research and shreds of evidence that there is another threat to humanity.
According to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, there is an unknown number of new and possibly lethal viruses are developing from Africa's tropical rainforests sets humanity at risk. Maybe abetted discover the Ebola virus in 1976. He has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since.
He told CNN, "We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out, and that's what constitutes a threat for humanity."
The identification of Ebola relied on a river that connected the most isolated parts of Africa's rainforests to high-tech laboratories in the West.
As a young researcher, Muyembe extracted the first body fluid samples from the mysterious disease victims that triggered internal bleedings. When the disease was first revealed in Yambuku Mission Hospital, it killed about 88% of patients and 80% of the staff working there.
The blood vials were sent to Belgium and the US, where scientists found a worm-shaped virus and called it "Ebola," after Zaire closed, the river where the outbreak in Congo was known.
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Now, the West must depend on African scientists in the Congo and elsewhere to act as the lookouts to warn against future bugs.
In Ingende, Congo, the uncertainties of meeting a new, deadly virus continued very real even after the patient's recovery showing Ebola-like signs, but Ebola test results came out negative. Thus, the virus that infected her remains a mystery.
Her samples were tested on-site and sent on to the Congo's National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) in Kinshasa. They were further tested for other similar symptoms diseases. All resulted negative. The virus that affected her remains a mystery.
Speaking exclusively to CNN in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, Muyembe cautioned of many more zoonotic diseases or those that jump from animals to humans to come.
Among the virus that passes from animals to humans are yellow fever, various influenza forms, rabies, brucellosis, and Lyme disease. Almost all through a vector such as a rodent or an insect. Almost all caused pandemics and epidemics then.
HIV developed from a kind of chimpanzee and transformed into a world-wide modern pestilence. SARS-CoV-2, which includes SARS, MERS, and the Covid-19 virus, are all coronaviruses that hopped to humans from unidentified "reservoirs," or the virus's natural hosts. Covid-19 is believed to have originated in China, probably in bats.
