Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07...arted-with-hendra-outbreak-brisbane/100237938
The deadly disease outbreak in sleepy suburbia
How a gruesome outbreak in a Brisbane suburb sparked a hunt that might help us uncover the origins of COVID-19.
WARNING: this story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find distressing.
By health reporter Olivia Willis for Patient Zero
ABC Radio National
Updated 4 Jul 2021, 19:52pm
Published 4 Jul 2021, 15:00pm
It was a blustery Thursday afternoon in suburban Brisbane; the last chills of winter were disappearing and the jacaranda trees looked just about ready to blossom.
On a quiet street about 15 minutes north-east of the city, kids were out riding their bikes.
It looked like any average suburban street — except that on this particular day in September, 1994, it was anything but.
Horses were being cut up in the front yard of a local stable by vets from the Department of Primary Industries, and the street was literally running with blood.
“There were a lot of body parts and blood and tissue leaking into the ground, so much so that some of the blood was running through the driveway, into the gutter,” says local vet Peter Reid, who had been treating the horses before they died.
The DPI vets were trying to get to the bottom of what had suddenly killed several horses at the suburban stable. But there was little in the way of infection control...
The deadly disease outbreak in sleepy suburbia
How a gruesome outbreak in a Brisbane suburb sparked a hunt that might help us uncover the origins of COVID-19.
WARNING: this story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find distressing.
By health reporter Olivia Willis for Patient Zero
ABC Radio National
Updated 4 Jul 2021, 19:52pm
Published 4 Jul 2021, 15:00pm
It was a blustery Thursday afternoon in suburban Brisbane; the last chills of winter were disappearing and the jacaranda trees looked just about ready to blossom.
On a quiet street about 15 minutes north-east of the city, kids were out riding their bikes.
It looked like any average suburban street — except that on this particular day in September, 1994, it was anything but.
Horses were being cut up in the front yard of a local stable by vets from the Department of Primary Industries, and the street was literally running with blood.
“There were a lot of body parts and blood and tissue leaking into the ground, so much so that some of the blood was running through the driveway, into the gutter,” says local vet Peter Reid, who had been treating the horses before they died.
The DPI vets were trying to get to the bottom of what had suddenly killed several horses at the suburban stable. But there was little in the way of infection control...