Who is Joe McCormick

Joe McCormick originally worked with meningitis epidemic in Sao Paulo in 1974. McCormick, at the time on loan from the CDC Special Pathogens and Bacteria Branch to the Pan American Health Organization, was new, but had experience. He had worked in the past in Zaire, where he quickly went from teaching to becoming a physician. Now in Brazil, he understood quickly the disease was a blend between Type A and Type C that had never been seen. When a vaccine that proved effective was developed, McCormick and other doctors helped to save the area from a pandemic. By 1976, McCormick was sent to Sierra Leone to investigate the Lassa virus, but just as he arrived, he was sent to Kinshasa, where he helped with the Ebola investigation. He was sent north and discovered an outbreak of the virus in N'zara. For three weeks, he slept in his Land Rover and worked on the virus during the day, interviewing survivors and families. It was McCormick who realized there were two completely isolated epidemics of Ebola in the area. Returning to work on Lassa, McCormick was also instrumental in halting that virus.