e AIDS epidemic, which hit 100,000 cases in the U.S. that year, the Army and CDC scientists carried out their tasks in relative obscurity .
It was only after "The Hot Zone" became a best-seller and focused attention on the public-health battle to confront emerging disease outbreaks that the Reston event became well known and Ebola became a household word.
"The big difference between now and 1989 is that nobody else knew what Ebola was," said Jaax, now an associate vice president at Kansas State University.
One of the most important legacies of Reston, Jaax said, was that none of the dozens who worked to contain the outbreak was exposed to the virus. The plans developed on the fly to keep the responders safe worked, he said, and provided a good blueprint for the protocols used to bring back the American aid workers earlier this month.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the UPMC Center for Health Security in Baltimore and an infectious disease physician, said the Reston responders' incorrect belief that they were dealing with a virus that was deadly to humans provided the ideal trial run for handling such an outbreak.
"It's like you're performing with a net underneath you, but you don't know it's a drill," Adalja said.
Ebola-Reston returned to the U.S. in 1996 in monkeys in Texas that had been imported from the Philippines. The Philippines has seen three outbreaks since the strain was identified, affecting primates, pigs and nine people. The workers who handled the animals developed antibodies, but did not get sick.
Hazelton abandoned the Reston facility in 1990, and the company was later swallowed up by a competitor. The monkey house was torn down a few years later. The new building there hosts several small offices and a day-care center.
Some of the office park workers are aware of the site's history; many are not.
Back in 1989, Vicky Wingert worked at the local homeowners' association, in offices across the street from the monkey house. She said nobody had any idea there was a problem until people showed up in hazmat suits. Even then, very little information trickled out, she said.
"At the time, it wasn't a big deal. Looking back, it probably should have been," she said.