MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries - Ep. 37 | River of Blood

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

 In late 1976, a terrifying new disease that causes eyes to bleed grips the country of Zaire. Doctors from all over the world arrive to search for the cure… if one exists at all.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge episodes 49 to 56 right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today! In a remote village in the African nation of Zaire, a pregnant woman laid in bed shaking from fever in the dead of night. She'd been sick for more than a week and was often up all night hacking and coughing. She didn't have an appetite and sometimes couldn't even swallow water. She worried that this awful disease was starting to hurt the baby growing inside of her. She turned over on the soft mat she used as a bed and closed her eyes and felt a chill rush over her. She opened her eyes and

could just make out a dark shape looming above her. The woman took a deep breath, and with every ounce of energy she could muster, she grabbed the lantern from beside her mat and swung it at the intruder. But the lantern just swung through the air. The woman sat up and looked around her single-room home, and she saw it was totally empty. She realized she had just been seeing things, but that didn't make her feel any better.

The woman began to cry, but as she wiped her eyes, she looked down at her hands and she stopped. Her tears were red and sticky. She was crying blood. A family of murderers. A ruthless mobster. A bomb maker. A baby thief. The American dream has a dark side, and my podcast, American Criminal, exposes it all.

Search for American Criminal in your podcast app now for deep dives into our country's worst, American Criminal. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr. Ballin, and this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. If you like today's story, the next time the follow button is out of

their house, please sneak in and switch the minute and hour hand on their kitchen clock. This episode is called River of Blood. On a hot and sticky morning in August of 1976, 44-year-old Mabalo Lokela woke up drenched in sweat. It was his first morning back in his remote village of Yambuku in the country of Zaire, and he didn't feel right. Mabalo was the school headmaster in a poor community that lacked basic necessities like phones, running water, and electricity. He could almost never afford the luxury of a real vacation, but he had spent the past two weeks traveling Zaire's rainforests. He'd visited friends and family and spent some time hunting rainforest game like monkeys, antelope, and red river hogs.

He'd had a great time, even though toward the end of the trip, he developed a persistent headache that developed into a fever. On the last morning, he woke up feeling shaky and nauseous, which made the long van ride back home absolutely awful. Mabalo had hoped that a good night's sleep in his own bed would help him feel better, but now, as he lay there staring up at the ceiling, he was feeling even worse. His stomach was churning and he felt a bit dizzy too. He could tell this fever was not about to go away on its own. He needed medication. The only medical care that was available was a local clinic that was staffed by Belgian nuns and a few villagers. There were no doctors, and the clinic was really just set up

to provide prenatal care for pregnant women. But usually, the nuns did have enough medication to tend to the village's basic medical needs. So Mabalo dragged himself out of bed, careful not to disturb his sleeping wife. He fished a clean shirt out of his travel bag and then made the long walk from his home down the dirt road all the way to the clinic. 20 minutes later, Mabalo felt weary from walking in the morning sun, but he could see the distinctive red metal roofs of the complex that housed the clinic just ahead. He felt grateful that these nuns from so far away had come to live in their village,

especially today. He really needed their help. Once Mavalo had crossed the clinic's courtyard and stepped through the door, he felt a bit better. It was still cool inside, since the sun had not been up long enough to warm the building up yet. He looked down the row of beds, all kept impeccably tidy, and then he looked along one wall and he saw a nurse was putting a few pill bottles into a row of beat-up supply cabinets. Mabalo knew this nurse. He was a local man who was named Cicado who worked for the nuns. Cicado waved and then asked Mabalo what brought him to the clinic that morning.

Mabalo pointed at his head and said he'd been sick with a headache and fever for days. Sukado nodded sympathetically and asked Mabalo to have a seat in one of the little folding chairs by the door. One of the nuns would be over to talk to him shortly. As soon as Mabalo sat down, he closed his eyes and leaned his aching head back against the cool cement wall. He was lost in a daydream when he heard the click of footsteps on the clay tile floor and then a soothing voice spoke his name. He opened his eyes to greet a short Belgian nun in a white linen dress. The nun pulled down the cotton face mask she was wearing and introduced herself as Sister Adela. She beckoned him over to one of the beds and told him he was welcome to lie down while she took his vitals, and so Mabalo happily obliged.

After a quick exam, the nun told Mabalo that he probably had malaria, a disease carried by mosquitoes that runs rampant in much of Africa. It's usually characterized by fever and flu-like symptoms, just like Mabalo had. And so, Sister Adela moved over to the worn cabinets along the wall and pulled out a syringe that was full of clear liquid. She explained that the liquid was a medication called quinine, which treated malaria. Sister Adela gently stuck the needle into Mabalo's left arm and then pushed the medicine inside of him, and then she set the syringe aside and put a bit of cotton over the drop of blood from the needle. She told Mabalo

to go home and take a nap, and he'd be back to normal in a couple of days. Mabalo thanked her, then slowly stood up and made his way out of the clinic. Eight days later, Mabalo's wife, Mbuzu, spooned some broth into a bowl and set it beside the bed she shared with her husband. She tied her long braids with a strip of leather and slipped into her shoes by the door. Her shoes looked miniature next to Mabalo's shoes. He towered over her when they stood side by side. But now, as he was curled up in bed, she thought he looked so small. Mabalo was still sick despite having gone to the clinic. In fact, after visiting the clinic, he came back and developed diarrhea and was vomiting so much

that Mbuzu thought that he must be dangerously dehydrated. Her husband was so weak he couldn't even get out of bed. Mbuzu knew she needed to get her husband more help. So she told Mabalo she'd be right back and she started walking to the clinic herself. When Mbuzu stepped into the clinic, she saw Sister Adela tending to a patient. Mbuzu waved her down and told her that her husband's symptoms had only gotten worse. She begged Sister Adela to please come home with her and see Mabalo. Sister Adela seemed alarmed that Mabalo was still sick and so she agreed to go. Sister Adela told her mother that Mabalo was still sick, and so she agreed to go. Sister Adela told her mother superior that she'd be back in an hour. When the two women reached Mabalo's bedside, Mbuzu gasped. Her husband wasn't moving, and there was blood oozing from his eyes and ears.

Mbuzu screamed and rushed to her husband. Mabalo opened his mouth like he was going to speak. Mbuzu leaned closer to hear whatever he was going to say, but then jumped back as a small river of blood gushed out of his mouth, trailing down his chin and staining their bedsheets. Horrified, Mbuzu turned to Sister Adela, who stared in disbelief. Then Mbuzu heard Mabalo begin to throw up, and so she grabbed a bucket just as he vomited up bile and blood. Mbuzu kept telling her husband that he'd be okay, he'd be okay, but Sister Adela quietly shook her head.

Mbuzu could tell by the nun's shell-shocked expression that she clearly had no idea what to do. Sister Adela just said she'd give him another injection of quinine, even though the last shot had done no good at all. After giving him the quinine injection, Sister Adela stayed a bit longer, helping Mbuzu clean up the blood dripping from her husband's eyes and ears. Once he was all cleaned up, Sister Adela told the couple that she promised to check in the next morning. But as she left, Mbuzu began to worry that tomorrow might be too late.

A few days later, on September 7th, 1976, Mbuzu held her husband's hand as he took sharp, labored breaths. Sister Adela's quinine injections had not done anything. Mabalo was still unbelievably sick, his eyes had not stopped bleeding, and his saliva was red with blood. Mbuzu could hear blood gurgle in her husband's throat as he struggled to get air. She squeezed his hand helplessly until she heard her husband stop breathing. Suddenly, Mbuzu felt a terrible emptiness. Her husband was dead. She wrapped their bedsheet around Mabalo, letting her tears fall onto his

motionless body. A few hours later, Mbuzu stooped over Mabalo's body alongside the women of Mabalo's family and some of Mbuzu's closest friends. Their front yard was full of neighbors and loved ones who came to sit with Mabuzu as she grieved. Despite her grief, Mabuzu felt touched by how many people mobilized to support her. Mabuzu and the other women washed Mabalo's body and wrapped him in a clean burial shroud. This was the funeral tradition in their village. Tomorrow, the men in the village would move Mabalo to the graveyard to be buried. A few days later, on the morning after Mabalo's funeral, Mbuzu awoke feeling totally exhausted. She'd barely eaten since her husband died, and she was completely worn out from crying. The moment she sat up, her head began to throb. She rubbed her temples trying to ease the pain,

and then without warning, she felt vomit surge in her throat. She barely had time to run outside before she threw up. Mbuzu knew this had to be more than just exhaustion. She cleaned herself up and then headed for the clinic right away. Mabalo's nurse friend, Sukato, had just finished sweeping the floor when Mbuzu appeared at the doorstep that morning. She looked awful. Even though the morning was still fairly cool, Sakato could see that Mbuzu was sweating profusely. Sakato felt a shiver run up his spine as he remembered the day that Mabalo had stumbled

through the clinic doorway. He'd looked just as sick as Mbuzu looked now. He told Mbuzu to sit down and then he ran out back to grab the nuns. Sakato came back inside with Sister Adela, and together they led Mbuzu to a bed. Sakato gave Mbuzu an encouraging smile, even though he feared she'd caught the same disease as Mabalo, which obviously killed Mabalo. And when his eyes met Mbuzu's, he could tell she was fearing the same thing. A few days later, in mid-September, Sokato was at work, busy refilling syringes with quinine, the malaria medicine. Behind him, Mbuzu's mother, sister, and daughter were all lying in clinic beds alongside Mbuzu. All of them were suffering from the same high fever and persistent headache. Mbuzu's mother had started hallucinating,

especially at night. Sometimes, when she was sleepy and her fever was spiking, she'd say that her dead son-in-law was standing in the clinic. Other times, she would see shadows that were not there. Sokato felt certain that these women did not have malaria. For one thing, malaria is not contagious, so it made no sense that four women from the same family had gotten sick one after another. Then there was the way that Sister Adela had described Mabalo bleeding from his eyes, ears, and mouth before dying. Sakato had never seen malaria cause something like that. To Sakato, it seemed like this bleeding sickness was something, and that it was somehow spreading among families. Mbuzu and her relatives had not started bleeding yet, but if their illness progressed anything like Mabalo's had, it wouldn't be long until they did.

The thought of an entire room full of patients all bleeding from their eyes horrified Sakato. And if their disease really was contagious, then he could be lying in bed among them by tomorrow bleeding out of his eyes. But then he looked across the room to a perfectly healthy pregnant woman who was resting in bed with an IV in her arm. She had come in for a routine checkup and prenatal vitamins. For this woman and everyone else in Yambuku, the little clinic was the only healthcare they had. It was literally the difference between life and death for countless villagers. Sakato knew that whatever the risk, he had to keep coming back to work. People were counting on him. Full of renewed purpose, Sakato finished filling the syringes of quinine and went to help his patients.

A week later, just before sunrise, Sakato stood outside the clinic door with a growing sense of dread. More and more villagers were getting sick, all with the same horrible symptoms. 21 people had come to the clinic with this disease so far, and every single one of them had lingered in bed, unable to eat or drink, growing so weak that they could barely lift their heads, until finally, around the 10-day mark after getting sick, blood would start leaking from their ears and eyes. Some patients had red-stained teeth from all the blood pooling in their mouths. After that, it was only a matter of days before they died from blood loss. Almost all of the people who'd gotten sick had died.

Mbuzu had lived, but she lost her entire family. At this point, only four patients remained alive in the clinic. And the outbreak was far from over. Two days ago, one of the pregnant women who came for prenatal vitamins began bleeding. Sakato had tended to her himself, knowing that if the mother died, her baby would too. The stress was really weighing on him. Even from the clinic doorstep, he could already smell the sweat and sickness of the patients inside.

But as scared as Ciccato was about getting sick himself, he was not going to stop helping. He pulled his protective mask from his pocket and wrapped it around his face. Then he unlocked the front door and stepped inside. As quietly as possible, Ciccato moved down the row of beds, and by the far wall, the pregnant woman was lying on her side beneath the blanket. Ciccato held his breath as he approached her, hoping she was still alive. But as he rounded her bed and crouched down, he could tell that she was not breathing.

Sakato wanted to get a wet rag to clean her up a bit, but he knew that duty belonged to her family. So he just pulled the bed sheet up over her head and said a little prayer for everyone who remained in Yambuku. One morning a few days later, so in late September, Sakato sat by Sister Adela's bedside. The brave nun who had treated so many patients with the bleeding sickness now had the disease herself. And sadly, she was far from alone. Seventeen nuns lived at the mission, and eleven of them had fallen ill with this sickness.

Sakato and Sister Adela had cared for them together in addition to the patients still lying in the clinic across the courtyard. One by one, each of the 11 nuns had died except for Adela, who was barely clinging to life. The mother superior had been forced to close the clinic altogether, leaving this ravaged village with no one left to care for the sick and dying. Sakato's sick neighbors had started leaving Yambuku, searching for help in nearby villages. Nobody had returned alive.

But it was no better in Yambuku. Sakato did the math and realized that so far, 90% of the people treated at their clinic for this bleeding sickness had died. Sakato pressed an aspirin into Sister Adela's shaky hand and then handed her a cup of water. The clinic had treated so many patients over the last month that they were down to their last aspirin and this was it. Sister Adela thanked him with a hoarse voice and he told her to please get some rest. Ciccato left her room and walked down the long cement hallway that ran through the nuns' living quarters.

For years, this had always been a very busy and bustling corridor, but now it was a ghost town. Zucato walked past empty room after empty room where the nuns used to live before the bleeding sickness had killed them. As Zucato neared the kitchen, he heard the crackle of static filtering in from the supply closet where the nuns kept their two-way radio. He peeked inside and found the Mother Superior turning dials as she tried to reach the outside world. She looked up at Sakato and he was taken aback by the weariness in her face. She told him that all morning she'd been calling for help. She'd sent out radio signal after radio signal, hoping someone might hear and get word to the Red Cross or the Zairean government that they desperately needed help, but so far, nobody had responded. Sakato felt a wave of dread wash over him as he listened to the Mother Superior's grim

news. Over the past six weeks, they'd received no news from the outside world and no additional medical supplies. And now Sakato wondered how far the disease had really spread. Had it gone all the way across Africa? Was it all over the world? Was there anybody still left out there? Sakato needed fresh air. He stumbled out of the kitchen into the backyard behind the mission complex. Nearer to the tree line, there was a row of 11 white crosses marking the dead nun's graves cicado had helped dig those graves he imagined sister adela lying there on the edge of the jungle beneath her white cross and now he wondered who would dig his grave when he eventually caught

the sickness and died too and then almost like clockwork a wave of nausea overtook him. Ciccato hunched over and vomited on the ground, and when he looked down, his vomit was full of bile and blood. He had finally caught the bleeding sickness. About a week later, on the last day of September, Ciccato was laying in bed staring at the ceiling. Because the clinic was shut down, he had just quarantined himself at home. Ciccato had not left his bed for days, and he felt incredibly weak, but so far, he had not begun bleeding from the eyes or ears. He was determined to stay alive through sheer willpower. Just then,

the ground beneath him began to shake, making the glass on his bedside table rattle. Sakato hoisted himself up onto his forearms to look out the window. He could see military vehicles making their way down the long dirt road that led into Yambuku. As Sakato watched in astonishment, the vehicles fanned out and surrounded his corner of the village. The soldier then spoke into the bullhorn and announced that Yambuku was now under quarantine. Nobody was leaving or coming back. Sakata was too weak, so he laid back down on his bed and just listened to the sound of the booming voice that was filling the air.

The soldier continued and said that people in 50 surrounding villages were now also experiencing the bleeding sickness. Even people in the capital city of Kinshasa, 700 miles away, were showing symptoms. But the soldier said that the whole outbreak began right here in Yambuku. Sakato closed his eyes as the horror of their situation sank in. The disease was clearly spreading fast, and it was also clear that the government had no idea how to stop it. The people of Zaire needed help from the outside, but he couldn't imagine anyone would be brave enough to come to Zaire to fight this lethal sickness. From the award-winning masters of audio horror. I see a face right up against the window.

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Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. A week later, a 27-year-old Belgian scientist named Peter Pio felt a rush of anticipation as he stepped off a plane onto an airstrip located 75 miles from Yambuku. It was a little more than a month after the first victim of the bleeding disease, Mabalo Lokela, had died. Peter was part of an international team of scientists and doctors sent to try to stop the disease before it spread beyond Zaire. Peter looked around the airstrip, taking in the lush green rainforest that hummed with plant and animal life. To him, it was the most beautiful landscape he'd ever seen. It was totally unlike anything in his native Belgium.

Peter turned to help his teammates, who were all collecting their luggage from the belly of their little plane. Peter had to admit that he was not nearly as qualified for this assignment to go stop this disease as his teammates were. Peter had only recently graduated from medical school. However, he'd crammed in as much research as possible before he left Belgium. He learned about using protective equipment, taking samples in the field, and how to take and test blood samples. A few days earlier, the American Centers for Disease Control, or CDC for short, had confirmed that the bleeding disease plaguing Zaire was caused by a virus no one had ever seen before. Nobody knew where this virus came from or how to treat it, but they did know where they needed to start the investigation.

Nearly one quarter of the 300 or so cases across the entire country were reported in Yambuku. So Peter and his more experienced teammates knew that their journey would start right there. Peter was last to collect his bags from inside the plane. He told the pilot they were good to go, and the pilot shouted adieu as the plane took off. It occurred to Peter right away that in this part of Africa, people didn't really say adieu, they would say au revoir to say goodbye, which was French for see you again. But the pilot had just said adieu, which simply meant goodbye, as though he did not expect to see Peter or his colleagues ever again. Peter swallowed hard. There was no

going back now, so he hoisted his bag up onto his shoulder and then followed the rest of his team off the airstrip toward a line of waiting Land Rovers. Four hours later, from the back seat of a Land Rover, Peter saw a group of small wooden houses with thatched roofs in the distance. He knew that it had to be Yambuku. As they reached the center of the village, the Land Rover stopped. It took a moment for Peter to see why the drivers had pulled over. The road into the clinic compound was blocked. Hospital gauze was draped across the entrance to warn people to stay away. On a tree nearby, a sign had been nailed up. It read, quote, Please stop. Anyone who crosses here may die." End quote. Peter could feel the mood in the land

rover shift, as though the gravity of this situation was now truly sinking in. But nobody said a word, so Peter decided to take charge. He jumped out of the Land Rover, stepped over the gauze barricade, and began walking toward the clinic. As he approached, three nuns came rushing out yelling at him to stop. But Peter kind of held up a hand and he told the first nun that came up to him that they were doctors and they were here to help figure out what was causing the bleeding sickness. Peter was touched by the look of utter relief on the nun's face. She said her name was Sister Marcella. She told Peter that for the past two weeks the clinic had just been closed and the remaining living nuns were simply praying for an end to this horror. She said that she and the

others would do whatever she could to assist them and motioned for Peter and the others to follow her inside the clinic. Peter carried his bag through the empty clinic and out into the courtyard. As the rest of the team got busy setting up a work camp, Peter asked Sister Marcella if they had any records of the patients who'd gotten sick from this disease and died. She nodded and promised to give him all her notes on the 70 victims from Yambuku, 63 of whom were now dead. Peter could hardly contain his shock. He'd known the disease was bad, but hearing the death toll out loud was staggering. Two hours later, as the nuns cooked dinner,

Peter and his team huddled around a table in the courtyard. Peter listened as the lead doctor explained their mission. The next morning, they would head out into the countryside looking for victims. They needed to talk to sick people and their families about when and where they got the disease and then collect their blood for analysis. Peter was hoping that after a few days of interviews and testing samples, they could get an idea of how this disease was spreading. He felt energized again as he got up from the table and helped the nuns carry dinner out to his team.

The next morning, Peter and three teammates drove west along a red dirt road on their way to visit nearby villages. Peter was struck again by how lush and green everything was. He loved listening to the sounds of insects and birds humming in the growing heat. It was easy to forget why he was there. But a reminder came soon enough when their land rover encountered a big pile of logs blocking the road about an hour west of Yambuku. The nuns had actually warned them about this. Most of the surrounding villages had blocked off their roads to keep out the people who had this bleeding sickness. The villagers had no supplies left to give out, and they obviously did not want to catch the sickness themselves. Peter wanted to respect their wishes, but it was vital for them to see

what was going on in these other villages. So Peter and the rest of his team dragged the logs to the side of the road, then jumped back into the car and continued their journey. As the Land Rover made its way into the center of this village, people came out to see what was going on. Peter had expected the villagers to avoid them out of fear, so he was surprised when a few of the villagers gathered right around their car looking very curious. The driver parked the car and everybody piled out while the team leader went to speak with the village elders. Peter took a little piece of candy out of his pocket and handed it to one of the little boys who'd come to investigate. He noticed that none of the kids playing around the village seemed sick. He wondered if maybe the roadblock had worked.

Perhaps it stopped the disease from reaching this village. Maybe there would be no blood samples to collect here or survivors to talk to. That would be good news for the village here or survivors to talk to. That would be good news for the village, but a waste of a trip for Peter and his team. But then the team leader waved Peter over. He said one of the villagers had something to show them. So Peter grabbed his backpack from the Land Rover and they followed this villager toward a nearby mud and clay home with a banana leaf roof. At the doorway, they all put on protective equipment, which included motorcycle goggles, gloves, paper face masks, and long sanitary gowns. Then they followed the

villager into the modest home. It was cooler inside, but Peter's protective equipment still felt sweltering in the midday heat. Toward the back, Peter saw a husband and wife laying on a raffia mat on the floor. As Peter neared them, he could see they were so weak they could barely move. Dried blood coated their ears and their cheeks from where it had streamed out of their eyes. To Peter, it was like something out of a zombie film, and for a moment he just froze. But then he remembered where he was and what he had to do. Peter took a syringe out of his backpack and knelt down next to the woman. He gently stuck the needle into her arm and filled a vial with her blood. The team leader knelt down

on the other side of the raffia mat to take a sample from the man. Peter stood up and walked over to his backpack and pulled a little pouch from inside. He wrapped the vials of blood in plastic and stuck them into a baggie before putting the bag and the syringe into his backpack. And right as he did that, Peter turned around because his team leader gasped. It took Peter a moment to realize what had happened. The sick man on the floor had just died. Peter just stood there for a moment, totally frozen in surprise. Then he looked over at the dead man's wife, who looked like she didn't have long to live either.

To Peter, it felt callous to leave her, and yet there was nothing they could do. They had no idea how to treat this new disease. In fact, the only way they could help was just to keep on moving. The villager who had led them into this hut ushered Peter and his team leader out of the home. As he walked them back to their car, the villager explained that soon that entire home would be full of women washing the man's body and preparing it for burial. It would be disrespectful for Peter and his teammate to be there anyway. So Peter, feeling relieved, thanked the man as he hopped into the Land Rover and then they drove off to the next village. On the evening of the third day, Peter and his crew sat around their table in the clinic courtyard and compared notes. One thing they'd been noticing was that in many villages, more women seemed to

get sick than men. And in Yambuku, a lot of pregnant women seemed to contract the sickness. But that wasn't enough information to actually draw any conclusions just yet. Strangely, the researchers had found that the village with the fewest bleeding sickness cases actually had no medical care at all. The village had only a traditional healer who handed out herbs and did healing rituals, but had almost no knowledge of modern medicine. And yet, his village was the only one they visited where nobody had died. The next day, Peter and his team leader went to that village where nobody had died yet to investigate further. When they arrived, the

villagers brought them to their healer. As the team leader interviewed the healer, it occurred to Peter that the healer's home smelled strongly of bleach. He only noticed it because since landing in Zaire, he'd mostly smelled firewood, generator oil, and the jungle. So this chemical smell really stood out. Peter asked the healer why he was using so much bleach, and the healer just raised an eyebrow, as though Peter had just asked him a totally ridiculous question. The healer pointed at a bunch of gadgets lying on top of a small table. Most were made of metal and they looked like medical equipment while others appeared to be homemade. The healer told Peter that those

were his instruments and he would use bleach and chlorine to sanitize them between clients. Once he said it, Peter almost felt dumb because the answer was so obvious. In the West, doctors used disinfectants to sterilize medical instruments, but in a place like this that was more remote, bleach was a decent substitute. Peter made a note of this in his journal. That evening, when they arrived back at the clinic in Yambuku, Peter followed Sister Marcella through the clinic, watching as she tidied up the space space he knew that she had seen this disease much more than they had and so maybe she knew something that he and his team had not thought to ask about peter told her about the village with the local healer where nobody had died from the bleeding sickness

sister marcella said she actually was not surprised at all. She said the number of cases in Yembuku did not really start to rise quickly until the first patient, the school headmaster, had died. Peter stopped walking. The comment kind of struck him as odd. He asked Sister Marcella to explain what she meant. She turned and told Peter that, so far, the cases they'd seen had come in bursts. Every time there was a funeral, like clockwork, the next several cases of the bleeding sickness they would see would be people who had

attended that funeral. It was like one big chain reaction. Peter thanked Marcella for the tour, and as he headed outside, his mind was racing. He and his teammates knew that this disease spread most easily to people closest to the sick, but they had not given much thought to the funerals themselves. Could it be that funerals were a breeding ground for this sickness? Marcella had said that it was usually close friends and family of the dead who got sick next, not all the other kind of random mourners who came to the funerals. So it wasn't just that funerals brought large groups of people close together. There had to be something about Zairean funerals that encouraged the spread amongst close family.

Peter went to share this information with his team, determined to figure out what the cause might be. A few hours later, Peter sat around the courtyard table with his team, studying all the information they had collected from villages throughout the region. In every village they'd visited, the bleeding sickness had appeared in bursts, mostly affecting close friends and family of the deceased. And they noticed far more women were contracting the disease than men. Then there was another piece of information.

In Yambuku, many pregnant women who visited the clinic later got sick. These pregnant women were just about the only ones to get the disease who had not recently been at a funeral for a close family member. Now, Peter and his team knew two things for certain. Something about these funerals was making people sick, And there was something unique about Yambuku that was giving the disease to pregnant women. Peter and his teammates talked into the night, but they just couldn't figure out what the connection was. It was like the explanation was staring them right in the face, but they just could not connect the dots. Peter rubbed his eyes, fighting off sleep. He did not want to give up and go to bed yet. So he stood

and offered to make some coffee, and everyone agreed. Nobody was ready to call it a night. A few minutes later, Peter rummaged through the small kitchen in the nun's living quarters, looking for the coffee. Then he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see the clinic's nurse, Ciccato, carrying a tray of food. Peter had met Ciccato several times and really liked him. Peter also knew that Ciccato was one of the very lucky 10% of people to survive the bleeding sickness. So, to Peter, Ciccato was like a walking miracle. Ciccato also seemed to know just about everything and he was always so eager to help. Peter asked Ciccato if he wouldn't mind helping him find the coffee. Ciccato if he wouldn't mind helping him find the coffee.

Ciccato smiled knowingly and then reached into one of the tall cabinets and pulled out a glass jar. That's when Peter had a thought. He asked Ciccato to walk him through the procedure for when pregnant women came to the clinic for prenatal care. Ciccato could do it in his sleep. He'd seen the nurses do it a thousand times. He motioned for Peter to follow him into the clinic.

There, Peter watched as Ciccato walked to the counter in the back of the clinic and opened up one of the drawers. He withdrew five syringes and then told Peter that these were the five needles that they used to treat their patients. Vitamin shots for expecting mothers and quinine shots for malaria patients. Ciccato said they cleaned these needles every evening to keep them in good working order. As Ciccato put the needles back in their drawer, Peter realized what Ciccato had just said, that they were only cleaning the needles once a day. He blinked, trying not to seem too alarmed. He clarified with Ciccato that the clinic used the same needles

between pregnant women and bleeding sickness patients, and Zucato said yes, especially in the beginning when the nuns thought everybody just had malaria. Peter was dumbfounded. That meant healthy pregnant women who had come to the clinic to get a vitamin shot were likely being injected with tiny droplets of blood from people who had the bleeding sickness. No wonder so many pregnant women and their babies were dying in Yambuku. They were being directly injected with the disease by their nurses. The thought of it made Peter sick. Peter remembered the healer whose home smelled like bleach. He had been actually sterilizing his instruments between patients and so that was why the bleeding sickness had not spread in his village.

Now the wheels in Peter's brain were really turning. He thought back to the man who died right as they took his blood sample during the first week in Zaire. The villager who'd taken them there had said the women in the dead man's family had to wash his body for burial right away. And right then, Peter's eyes went wide as he had this sudden realization. He thanked Ciccato and hurried right back out to the courtyard where his teammates were working, because he had a vital piece of information he needed to share with them. Peter and his team soon realized that the bleeding sickness was spread through contact with bodily fluids. In Zaire, part of the funeral custom was for the women in the family to wash the body of the deceased immediately after death. The virus was still very much alive on the dead body and spread

when loved ones came into contact with bodily fluids such as blood. Meanwhile, the pregnant women in Yambuku were getting this disease from contaminated blood on the syringes used for their vitamin shots. As Peter and his team researched the disease further, they soon discovered that this lethal virus was originally confined to animals like chimpanzees and fruit bats. Mabalo Lokela, the school headmaster in Yambuku, and Patient Zero likely ate infected game on his hunting trip and became the first human victim. His wife Mbuzu and her family then caught the virus while preparing his body for burial. By the time Peter and his team

learned how the bleeding sickness spread, nearly 300 people across Zaire and neighboring southern Sudan had died. But the spread was stopped thanks to the villagers' self-imposed quarantine and medical information being shared widely about the danger of sharing needles and touching bodily fluids. Peter and his teammates were tapped with naming this disease, and they decided to call it the Ebola virus after a river in the area. They thought about naming it Yambuku, but they didn't want to stigmatize the village. Since 1976, there have been more than 38 outbreaks of Ebola and over 15,000 deaths. Now, there is a vaccine for a particular strain of the Ebola virus,

but as of today, there is still no cure. Also, Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries ad-free. Join Wondery Plus today. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at listenersurvey.com. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballin. A quick note about our stories. We use aliases sometimes because we don't know the names of the real people in the story. And also, in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on a lot of research. And a reminder, the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute

for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This episode was written by Aaron Lan and Lauren DeLille. Our editor is Heather Dundas. Sound design is by Andre Pluss. Our coordinating producer is Taylor Sniffen, and our managing producer is Sophia Martins. Our senior producer is Alex Benidon. Our associate producers and researchers

are Sarah Vytak and Tasia Palaconda. Fact-checking was done by Sheila Patterson. For Ballin Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt. Script editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our coordinating producer is Matub Zare. Executive producers are myself,

Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondery, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wondery. This woman is so adept at being a criminal, it's not funny.

I've never seen a shit show quite like the story of Sarah King. She conned people out of $10 million. But infamy comes with a price. If we don't have her money by tomorrow morning, you will be gutted like a fish in Newport Harbor. Lady Mafia, available now on The Binge. Search for Lady Mafia wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.