‘Incredible mind, incredible heart’: After decades fighting Ebola, a beloved expert hangs up his boots
On the last day of January, while most everyone who works on or worries about Ebola had their eyes trained on the latest dangerous outbreak, one of the world’s leading experts on the virus quietly retired.
Dr. Pierre Rollin, who has more Ebola field experience than almost anyone on the planet, shared a cake with close colleagues and cleared out his office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He sent co-workers an email citing the lyrics to “My Way,” explaining he wanted the song to play when the email was opened but could not “find someone young enough to know how to do it.”
And then, after 26 storied years with the agency, Rollin took his leave.
Rollin had been deputy branch chief of viral special pathogens, the team at the CDC that handles the deadliest known viruses, as well as the head of epidemiology for that group. A physician by training, he worked in the highest-security laboratories, studying what Ebola viruses do when they infect. But he also did much, much more.
He is renowned among the hardcore community of people who work on Ebola (and on Marburg fever, a related virus) as a jack-of-all-trades, someone who is able
