EBOLA OUTBREAK

The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus!

Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D, Nobel laureate

        Ebola is a term given to a group of viruses that belong to the genus Ebolavirus and family Filovirirdae. The common name for the disease is Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever. The Ebola virus is named after the Ebola River which is a headstream of the Mongala River, a tributary of the Congo River. The virus was given its name during the time of the first outbreak in September, 1976 when  fifty five villages along the Ebola River were devastated by the the virus.  The virus killed 9 out of 10 people infected. It is one of the most feared viruses on the planet!

       This year's mission is inspired by the  book called The Hot Zone by Richard Preston and on the movie Outbreak .

         The mission scenario is as follows: On June 6, 2008, you and your team of oceanographic researchers receive an urgent satellite video communication from the World Health Organization, WHO, with a follow up communique from United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, USAMRIID,  located at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. Health workers in Khartoum, Sudan are reporting up to ten thousand cases of Ebola Zaire, the hottest type of Ebola virus. Following blood tests confirming the diagnosis by the World Health Organization, USAMRIID was contacted in the hopes that the Institute had developed a serum to counter Ebola Zaire. The danger of widespread epidemic is so great that USAMRIID, assuming they had the serum, might release the serum despite the loss of military advantage. The World Health Organization was right.  USAMRIID had the serum, and they agreed to provide the number of doses required to stop the epidemic. USAMRIID sent the serum along with its number one specialist, Dr. Kovach, one of the two people that developed the serum and one of a handful of people in the world that conducts research on Ebola.

Click here for WHO            and USAMRIID

        Dr. Kovach boarded a military transport plane along with the vials of serum. The pilot of the transport reported engine failure, and the local authorities reported that the transport went down in the south part of the North Atlantic just 165 miles off the coast of Dakar, Senegal.

        Your mission is to halt current research projects near the volcanic island of Brava and get over to the crash site as soon as possible to recover the serum, the transport's flight recorder, and Dr. Kovach's  Palm Pilot or PDA. You are the only organization currently available and capable of recovering the serum before its loss of viability. The flight recorder will also be needed to determine the cause of the crash, and Dr. Kovach's notes and data are extremely valuable since he is one of the few people in the world to work with Ebola and with the serum.

        Since you and your team were not really prepared to do a mission like this, you came up with a bank of lights to assist your ROV pilot to see the crash site in the dark ocean water. You do, however, have one problem. You do not have enough tether to control the lights from the surface. You devise a plan to drop the lights overboard with a battery pack to provide light for 15 minutes. The bank of lights are buoyant, but the batteries and the switch are not. The batteries and switch act like an anchor so that the lights will hover over the crash site above the wreckage of the plane. 

        There is one more thing USAMRIID did mention. The plane was equipped with a thermal self-destruct device in the event that the transport was taken hostage and the cargo needed to be destroyed. USAMRIID informed you that the device was never activated. In any event you are to be careful not to set it off. The switch is located on the dashboard to the right, in front of the pilot, adjacent to the origin beacon switch which is used to indicate the point of origin of each flight.  The switch becomes armed in the event of a crash, or if the pilot arms it in an emergency.

The mission goals are as follows and are in no particular order::

1. Retrieve the 4 vials of serum.

2. Measure the depth of the transport plane.

3. Measure the temperature of the location where the vials of serum were found to ensure viability of the serum.

4. Activate the origin beacon to announce, using Morse code, the last known airport the plane departed from and decipher the code.

5. Turn on the assistive lights to help with the mission.

6. Retrieve the flight recorder, or black box, from a compartment in the cockpit.

7. Retrieve Dr. Kovach's Palm Pilot, or PDA.

8. Avoid all the volcanic vents with gasses hot enough to damage the ROV .

9. Avoid the setting off the thermal self destruct device which would end the mission immediately.

        The missions will take place in the dark of night like the previous NURC event, Germany's Lost U-Boat. The missions will begin at 8:00pm.There will be cameras throughout the pool and the plane to capture your team's ROV throughout the mission. The video footage, including the footage from your ROV, will be displayed in the viewing room where all the non-participating teams and your non-mission team members, as well as the general public, can view all the action. There will be a play-by-play announcer to help explain what is going on. The live video footage will also be broadcast over the local cable channels and over the internet for the whole world to see. The videos will also be archived for future viewing.