As I write these words Gallup has just released a poll showing that America is almost as fearful of Ebola in October 2014 as it was of the H1N1 “swine flu” in May 2009: Fourteen percent of Americans believe Ebola is likely to sicken them or someone in their family in 2014, compared to 20 percent who thought the same of swine flu in 2009. The finding is staggering, considering that at this moment just six Americans have contracted Ebola, all of them infected while living or working in the African nations of Liberia or Sierra Leone. In contrast, by the time Gallup conducted its 2009 poll about H1N1, more than 14 million Americans were already infected with the flu, most without realizing it.

Ebola, a virus named after a Congolese river, has conjured special respect since its discovery in 1976 in Yambuku, Zaire. As I wrote in my first book, The Coming Plague, the deadly disease was utterly mysterious back then, when its first wave washed over the remote town to claim the lives of 90 percent of those infected. The small international team of virus hunters who gathered in Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa, knew little about the strange disease except its horrible toll. Yambuku could only be reached via government planes and helicopters, and communication with the outside world was all but impossible. The scientists and physicians entered villages to find entire families sprawled inside dirt-floored huts, crying out in hallucinations, moaning in pain, and bleeding from every orifice—blood that was filled with contagious viruses.