The Next Pandemic? A Scenario.

It began with a chimpanzee-trekking tour of a remote forest in Uganda and ended with the outbreak of a deadly new disease. And all because of health cuts and the disruption of a wild animal habitat.

Deep in the Budongo Forest on the shores of Lake Albertine in western Uganda, a group of zoology students from Montreal are on the trip of a lifetime. Together with tourists from the United States and France, they have come to study chimpanzees in their natural habitat.

A sanctuary for nature lovers, the Budongo Conservation Reserve spans 825km² and is home to 600 chimpanzees, including the Sonso and Waibira communities. Roaming the area between Budongo Forest and Murchison Falls National Park, most of the chimps are habituated to humans and after a two-to four-hour trek they can be observed at close quarters playing, feeding and napping. More adventurous tour groups can venture deeper into the reserve where they may spy chimps un-used to humans and gain a deeper understanding of their routines.

A family of chimps in the Budongo Forest

On this day in late May, the tour party stumbles on a family of chimps gathered around a tree hollow. Unlike other chimps they have observed, these are slow and listless and make no attempt to run away. Instead, one by one they reach their hands into the hollow and scoop decaying organic matter into their mouths. Chimps in the Budongo reserve have been known to eat earth in search of minerals and chemicals missing from their diets, but the guide has never observed this activity and motions for the party to move in for a closer look. The organic matter smells strongly of urine, and peering into the tree, the guide sees bats roosting in the hollow.

That evening he reports his finding to the Conservation Field Station and the following day forest rangers visit the tree hollow and set up cameras to capture the chimps’ behaviour. Every day they observe the chimps and other forest animals, such as black-and-white colobus and red duiker, visiting the hollow and feeding on the bat guano. Baffled by their behaviour, they report their findings to the Uganda Wildlife Authority who pass on the information to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

Meanwhile, fuelled by the guano, the chimps regain their vigour and muscle tone and are soon swinging freely from trees. But a week later, two develop hiccups and begin vomiting and expelling explosive diarrhoea. When a ranger comes across one of the chimps apparently comatose on the forest floor he brings it to the field station for examination. There, a vet treats the chimp and takes faecal samples to check for parasites. But the tests come up negative and two days later the chimp dies.

Normally, autopsy samples would be sent to a nearby lab for analysis but cuts to USAID programmes have hit this region of Uganda hard. Instead, the samples, together with the guano, are dispatched to the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) in Kampala, 200km away. There, tests show the guano contains sodium and natural fertilisers such as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. But when scientists run a PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test there is a surprise. The guano also contains a novel coronavirus and several other viruses, some unknown to science.

By now the ranger has a sore throat and a splitting headache. When he vomits, he is rushed to the former colonial hospital in Masindi where it is assumed he has malaria and given intravenous quinine. But the next morning he is doubled-up in pain, with blood leaking from his eyeballs and that afternoon he dies. The autopsy reveals he has suffered massive internal haemorrhaging, leading medics to suspect a filovirus, such as Sudan Virus Disease (SVD), a species of Ebola that has caused previous outbreaks in Uganda.

Meanwhile, the students and tourists have checked out of their eco lodge in the Bodungo reserve and are speeding to Kampala. Their destination? Entebbe International airport, from where they will catch a direct flight to Doha in Qatar. At Doha, some will transfer to planes bound for Dubai, Paris, Washington and Montreal.

The virus – whatever it is – is about to go global.