Ebola Virus In Richard Preston's The Hot Zone

Ebola Virus also known as EVD was discovered in West Africa around 1976. The affected region in Congo was near the Ebola River, which is how the virus got its name. The first two outbreaks were in Nzara, Sudan and Yambuku. Ebola is an infectious and generally fatal disease marked by fever and severe internal bleeding. It is spread through contact with infected body fluids, whose normal host species is unknown. It can be transmitted through wild animals, and after affected, through human to human contact. The average case fatality rate is fifty percent. The rate has been anywhere between twenty-five to ninety percent in that past.

Richard Preston’s novel The Hot Zone, was based on a true story about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, mainly the Ebola and Marburg viruses. It primarily focuses on the Ebola virus’ first documented outbreak during the 1980s. As you read The Hot Zone, you will notice that it has been divided into four individual segments. The first segment looks into the history of filoviruses, and how AIDS emerged. The novel begins with Charles Monet, an elderly man who travels to Kitum Cave in Kenya. After coming in contact with an odd liquid substance, he begins to experience symptoms of the Marburg Virus (abbreviated as “MARV”), which includes; headaches, backaches, internal organs failing, and excessive bleeding. Monet travels to the Nairobi Hospital and ends up infecting the young Doctor that treated him. Years after Monet’s passing, a young pathologist named Nancy Jaax is introduced. Her story was told in her point of view as she describes the Introduction to Viruses, Biosafety Levels, and

In his book, The Hot Zone, Richard Preston focuses on an outbreak of the Ebola virus in Reston, Virginia and in multiple places in Africa. To show how dangerous an outbreak can be, Preston examines, in great detail, various other viral outbreaks, including Marburg. Preston begins by talking about a fifty-six year old Frenchman named Charles Monet who ends up breaking out with a treacherous disease called Marburg. This wasn’t known until his doctor, Dr. Shem Musoke, ended up testing positive for Marburg after Monet`s infected blood went all over Doctor Musoke as Monet was dying. Musoke survived his outbreak with Marburg.

The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston is the true and dramatic story of the outbreaks of the frightening, unknown and incurable filoviruses; Marburg, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan and Ebola Reston. This book covers the first documented outbreak of the virus and continues to cover more outbreaks over the course of 23 years. These sisters viruses are highly infective and destroyed entire communities throughout Africa with the deaths of 50- 90% of their victims. The effects are similar and horrifying with the viruses penetrating every tissue and organ in the body of a person, primate or other animal. This book takes place in the late 1980s and is based on an outbreak of Ebola in a monkey house in the quaint town of Reston, Virginia. Richard Preston incorporates tales of several outbreaks that occurred in Africa years before to describe the potential destruction that the filoviruses could

The Hot Zone describes the true events in the 1980s surrounding an outburst of the Ebola virus at a monkey facility in Reston, Virginia. The author also gives a background of many other biological outbreaks, mainly in Africa in the 1970s to the 1980s. The book starts off in Kenya with a French colonist name Charles Monet planning to go on a trip up Mt Elgon. Monet starts up the mountain and finds a cave called Kitum Cave. He enters the cave and explores and later the reader figures out that the bats in the cave have been exposed to this unknown virus. Monet is taken to a hospital there called Nairobi Hospital were a doctor named Dr. Musoke operates on him and becomes infected from Monet’s blood. Next, Preston tells about the outbreak of the

In The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, Preston writes about his research as he finds the origin of the Ebola Virus while also finding facts surrounding other viral outbreaks. In the beginning of the book, Preston writes about Charles Monet who died because he was exposed to the Marburg Virus. The Marburg virus and the death of Charles Monet was described in such a specific, gruesome way, which shows us how terrifying this virus actually was and what kind of damage it can do to our bodies. The first few chapters of the book mainly describes several different outbreaks that have happened four years before Charles Monet’s death. The first virus was the Ebola Virus is Sudan, which infected a local shopkeeper who unfortunately spread

Bill Bryson claims in A Walk in The Woods that he “discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists” (274). In the autobiographical nonfiction novel, Bryson captures his expedition in the wilderness alongside his companion, Katz, who faced drastic differences between their ordinary daily lives versus the wilderness – a place where nothing was taken for granted. Similarly, Richard Preston wrote about the terrifying origins and effects of Ebola in The Hot Zone and included similar viruses that caused chaos in ordinary lives of human beings. Both A Walk in The Woods and The Hot Zone incorporate the theme of exploration by using description and narration to enhance the story lines.

Our world is currently facing a deadly epidemic which we are calling it a very dangerous viruses that humanity is facing since HIV/AIDS. This virus is called the Ebola hemorrhagic virus. Although there were broadcasts about tentative cures that were conveyed to be prosperous with treating the virus, people all around the world remain to pass on from Ebola. Although this virus is fatal, its signs are occasionally the same as other less dangerous diseases like the flu or a fever. To relax your anxiety about the spreading of the virus, it is very important to know what people are currently dealing with when it comes to this sad epidemic.

My name is Drishna Perumal and I attend Olentangy Orange High School, class of 2016. After high school I hope to go to medical school and graduate with a MD-PhD and pursue my career goals as a physician. I am a rising senior in high school who is aspiring to be a medical professional that helps people of all walks to be treated to a healthier and better lifestyle. I chose the Ebola virus for my project because it’s one of the most deadly diseases known to man that still has an impact on our civilization now. In addition, the amount of damage this microscopic organism can cause in a short amount of time is truly fascinating.

The Ebola virus disease (EVD) was initially discovered in 1976; which originated from the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). EVD is a severe, often fatal disease affecting humans, and nonhuman primates. Outbreaks occur in Africa affecting mostly the central and western portions of the continent. Formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, but the recent outbreak illustrates viruses’ ability to manifest itself without hemorrhaging. While EVD can be a deadly disease, its spread can be stymied rather quickly with properly trained, and well equipped personnel, effective disposal of dead bodies, and changes in burial practice.

Ebola was first discovered in 1976 at the Ebola River which is currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, not many outbreaks have occurred. That is until 2014 many more outbreaks have taken place in Africa. People get Ebola through direct contact with bodily fluids (skin, eyes, nose, or mouth). It is not airborne and can be transferred by infected fruit bats and bodily fluids. To this day there's no cure, but treatments are being developed and researched. Ebola’s symptoms are very deadly. The first 9 days consist of a headache, fatigue, fever, and muscle soreness. When it is the 10th-day people may experience a sudden high fever, vomiting blood, and a behavior change.

Ebola, also called Hemorrhagic Fever is a rare deadly disease caused by infection with a strain of ebola virus. This organism causes fever, headache, coughing blood, vomiting blood, severe bleeding, organ failure, and leads to death. It is spread through body fluids and blood of someone who is showing ebola symptoms. Ebola can also be spread by hazardous products (unclean needles or unscreened blood), skin to skin contact, exchanging saliva (kissing, sharing drinks or food), and making contact with a contaminated surface (doorknob, tissue, etc.).

When ebola gets into your body your immune response sends specialised cells to attack the ebola virus but the ebola uses these cells to replicate and continue growing and spreading in the body, eventually your body can’t go on for much longer so they use all their power at once to destroy the ebola virus but it most of the time does more damage than good. The ebola virus infects people thru contact with bodily fluids and enters thru cracks in the skin like a cut, the fluid can be from sexual reproductive fluids to a simple sneeze. Ebola will start with a high fever and eventually lead to internal bleeding and fluids you will throw up alot and have diarrhea.

A man named Thomas Eric Duncan was 42 and had contracted the virus while visiting Liberia; he died a week after diagnosed. This took place in Dallas, Texas, where Duncan originally lived. Soon after his death, two of the nurses that provided care to Duncan were also diagnosed. Although Duncan was the only receiver of the virus that died, there were only four cases of Ebola in the United States (“Outbreaks Chronology”). Precautions taken by the US government in keeping the disease under quarantine were extreme.

The Ebola Haemorrahagic Fever, or Ebola for short, was first recognized as a virus in 1967. The first breakout that caused the Ebola virus to be recognized was in Zaire with 318 people infected and 280 killed. There are five subtypes of the Ebola virus, but only four of them affect humans. There are the Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and the Ebola-Bundibugyo. The fifth one, the Ebola-Reston, only affects nonhuman primates. The Ebola-Zaire was recognized on August 26, 1976 with a 44 year old schoolteacher as the first reported case. The Ebola-Sudan virus was also recognized in 1976 and was thought to be that same as Ebola-Zaire and it is thought to have broken out in a cotton factory in the Sudan. The Ebola-Ivory Coast was