The Hot Zone: Ebola's Infamy

Historically Ebola has had a serious impact on human health and hygiene and still does due to the fact of no vaccine or treatment being discovered, but thanks to improvements in scientific and medical knowledge the virus itself is now controllable.

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

There has been an acute worry roaming about the United States concerning the Ebola Outbreak. Originally, Ebola had never touched the United States until September of 2014. (4) The disease was originated from and named after a river in the Democratic of Congo. Since discovered, there have been known cases in Africa. There have been many very deadly cases of Ebola - the fatality rate is estimated to from about fifty to ninety percent. (2) To the United States, there had never been any worry about the disease until September twentieth of 2014. A man by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan boarded flight 822 from Liberia to Dallas, Texas. Flight 822 was where it all began. Nobody had any

In his book The Hot Zone, Richard Preston accounts the journey of the hemorrhagic fevers from their first modern appearances in 1967 to 1993. Preston follows twelve characters along their journey working with or against Ebola. “Charles Monet” was a Frenchman who explored Kitum Cave on New Years eve 1980 and violently dies of Marburg 2 days later. He is the first case since the original outbreak in Germany in 1967, which was believed to be caused by the shipment of monkeys from West Africa. LTC Nancy Jaax was an Army veterinary pathologist who begins working with the Ebola virus in 1983, and then becomes chief of Pathology at USAMRIID in 1989, as such she is heavily involved in the Reston monkey house disaster. COL Jerry Jaax, husband to Nancy was chief of the veterinary division as USAMRIID. He also lead the SWAT team that took over the Reston monkey house. “Peter Cardinal” was a Danish boy who died of Marburg in 1987 after visiting Kitum Cave. Eugene Johnson was a civilian virus hunter, specializing in Ebola. In 1988 he lead an Army expedition to Kitum Cave following the death of “Peter Cardinal”. Dan Dalgard was lead veterinarian at the

In late 2013, Ebola virus disease (EVD), a deadly and lethal disease, remerged in West Africa spreading to various countries in the region. In humans, the disease is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids leading to haemorrhagic fever (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Originating in 1976 in equatorial Africa, past outbreaks with a few hundred cases had been contained within rural, forested areas in Uganda and Congo (Piot, 2012). In 2014, a total of 20, 206 cases and 7,905 deaths were reported to have occurred in up to eight countries worldwide. Of all cases and deaths resulting from the disease, 99.8% occurred in three neighbouring West African countries - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea (WHO, 2014). With a case fatality rate from about 50% to 90%, and the absence of preventative or curative therapies, the Ebola epidemic has led to overall global alarm and further elucidated existing global health disparities that perpetuated the epidemic with these West African countries.

Published in 1992, “The Hot Zone”, written by Richard Preston, describes the Ebola outbreak during the 1980’s in Reston, Virginia. The novel effectively describes the African outbreaks and the research behind them as well as the quarantine of the monkey facility in Virginia. The book begins by introducing Charles Monet, who was the first person infected in the African outbreak. Charles and his girlfriend traveled to Mount Elgon, located in West Kenya.

In 2014 the United States was hit with a force far more deadly and dangerous than many threats received. The ebola virus took the world by storm after it was carried to the United States and spread by people who had visited West Africa. This virus was all the more deadly as it often took hours for any symptoms to occur. In this time the Center for Disease Control spent much time and many resources looking for answers to the many questions they had. Under the time constraint and scrutinizing public, they had to determine what ebola was, what it did and its effects on the general public.

The average fatality rate of patients infected with Ebola is around 50% according to the World Health Organization. The nonfiction book titled The Hot Zone by Richard Preston takes readers through true events pertaining to an outbreak of Ebola in the late 1980’s at a monkey testing facility in Reston, Virginia. The author heavily emphasizes the danger surrounding ignorance and uncertainty in regard to the viral and morbid Ebola at the conclusion of the book. While Preston makes this point evident countless times, three particular quotes give a clear example of Preston’s intention.

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

It is vital to understand deadly viruses and their history in order to prevent future outbreaks. Ebola leaves very few clues after annihilating its victims, so it is incredibly important to analyze those clues. Ebola’s close relationship to monkeys contains key knowledge that could hold the secret to its success. Paying close attention to how Ebola is spreading and mutating could lead researchers to the answer for preventing the contraction of it. Discovering where and how the virus first emerged could lead to Ebola’s end.

Since the Ebola virus essentially liquefies the insides of the human body, once the brain begins to hemorrhage, the virus alters the personality of the victim (Preston, 1995, p. 39). The reader may draw the conclusion that depersonalization of Ebola victims is a terrifying reality. Ebola provides no awareness or memory to the victim when death arrives, as the plethora of effects “obliterate the person beneath them” (Preston, 1995, p. 4). Essentially, the virus is stealing the humanity away from the victim. Preston (1995) also adds “[t]he more one contemplates the hot viruses, the less they look like parasites and the more the begin to look like predators” (p. 136). The reader may wonder whether or not this virus is living or dead, and whether or not the virus is looking to destroy the human or feed on the

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

Ebola Zaire, arguably the deadliest known virus strain on earth, held a mortality rate up to ninety percent in the past, and is the hottest type of Ebola Viral Diseases. In addition, there are four other types of Ebola species: Ebola Sudan, Ebola Ivory Coast, Bundibugyo ebolavirus, and Ebola Reston. Notably, the earliest of Ebola outbreaks being from Ebola Sudan and Ebola Zaire, both erupted during 1976 in Africa. Previously known as the Ebola haemorrhagic fever, these virus are known to cause tremors and convulsions in its host, resulting in the splattering of blood which is used as its strategy for transmission. Other ways of contracting Ebola is through contact with patient’s bodily fluids and aerosolized secretions in the air. Furthermore, the novel The Hot Zone written by Richard Preston, along with online sources from Gale’s database also indicates that virus outbreaks are partly aided through factors such as close

In both Ebola Outbreak by Dabbous and A mask on the Face of Death by Seltzer they discuss the social and political problems contributing to the spread of Ebola and HIV/AIDS. These Epidemics continue to spread thought out the world to millions of people. The main areas that these diseases began to spread began in very poverty stricken countries. Not only did poverty play a role in the spread but both Dabbous and Seltzer pointed out the lack of education in the area which leads people to easily be manipulated by stories about the diseases. The cultural practices in these areas contribute majorly to the spread of the Ebola and the AIDS virus. These viruses continue to spread to other parts of the world and is hard to contain to a specific location.