The plague monkeys.

Describes an outbreak of Ebola disease in an animal quarantine station in Reston, Virginia in 1989. This is the second time the disease, usually confined to Africa, has appeared in the West. The virus is carried by green monkeys but its origin is, to date, unknown. The first outbreak was at a polio vaccine laboratory in Marburg, Germany in 1967 where there were 7 deaths. The strain of ebola that caused the Reston outbreak was not the most deadly, airborne kind, so it was possible to contain it without human deaths. However, it pointed to the possibility of a more serious occurrence unless the greatest care is taken over the importation of monkeys from areas where the disease is endemic. The account is illustrated with extensive archive footage of Ebola epidemics in Zaire and the Sudan during the 1960s and '70s.