Averting an Outbreak

In recorded history, no disease has jumped the species barrier to infect humans, caused an epidemic, and then never threatened us againnot without the discovery of a vaccine or cure to curtail the microbe. Some diseases, such as chicken pox, gradually become endemic to man, eventually resulting, if we are lucky, in nothing more than a mild childhood illness. Others, such as Ebola, retreat back to whatever animal reservoir they came from, stalking humanity from their hidden lair, only occasionally lashing out to bloody a village or crash a rural hospital. But diseases don't, as a rule, just go...