The Hot Zone Sparknotes

* The Reston Ebolavirus was discovered during an outbreak of Simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV) in crab-eating macaques from Hazleton Laboratories (now Covance) in 1989. Since the initial outbreak in Reston, Virginia, it has emerged in Siena Italy, Texas, and among pigs in the Philippines. Despite its status as a Level-4 organism, it is non-pathogenic to humans although hazardous in monkeys.

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

Chapter 1 of Part 3 titled, “Insertion”, in The Hot Zone by Richard Preston Jerry Jaax wakes up in the morning and gets ready. All of his team wore civilian clothing, because wearing space suits would panic the media. He leaves the house and arrives at the Institute. Whole crowds of people were waiting at the side of the building. He spotted Gene Johnson, he was pacing back and forth across the loading dock. There were many camouflage military trunks that contained Johnson’s gear from Kitum Cave. A white van pulled up and Johnson loaded his equipment into it. This van was headed to Reston. By now, The Washington Post newspaper had a headline on their paper saying that a deadly Ebola virus was found at the monkey house. Top-level workers were

The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, is a non-fiction story about the deadly virus (Ebola) spreading throughout the world. Certain strains of this virus are 90% fatal, and cause horrible symptoms, such as facial drooping, muscle aches, reddened eyes, and puking. The Ebola virus was traced back to a man named Charles Monet. After Monet, the virus spread rapidly, and it was leaving no survivors.

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

Richard Preston, the author of The Hot Zone, wanted us to believe two things. The first is that the viruses explained throughout the novel, such as Marburg and Ebola, are nature’s defense against the “infectious parasite” that the human race is on this planet. He emphasizes that the horrible viruses are the earth’s way of punishing the human race for taking over and for preventing their future expansion. The second thing he wanted us to believe is the idea that the Ebola virus could spread very rapidly if it’s airborne. In today’s society, with the use of airplanes, it’s very easy for viruses such as Ebola which are airborne to spread all over the world, and “feed” on a variety of hosts around the world. In the novel, many of the outbreaks

Scientists could predict how many people could die in a period of time. Since 1966, way before Dugas become a sexually active, scientist trace the virus not only in US, but also in places such as Haiti and Africa. Scientists took samples of blood from 1959, 1960 and bodies from 1908 they found the HVI virus in those samples. Beatrice Hahn, a professor from University of Pennsylvania, help to search for a much earlier Patient Zero, by taking it to Africa, and turning back the clock on a series of virus mutations and pinpointing with a diverse viruses such as SIV (simian immune virus), AGM (African green monkey) among many more of cross-species spillover (term scientists use to describe a moment a virus in one specie passes to other spice) in a jungle in Cameroon. A virus hunter, Nathan Wolfe, professor in human biology in Stanford University, takes it back even farther to an intracellular investigation in monkeys, gorillas, and chimps. Concluding with an intense research in chimps in a different places of West Africa, with a data, samples of major groups of HIV, and viruses from chimps created a model of “chimp Patient zero” hundreds of thousands of years

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

With horrifying details and graphic evidence that could scare even the toughest of people, Richard Preston tells the story of any American’s worst nightmare in his nonfiction novel; The Hot Zone. The words on the cover, “A Terrifying True Story”, make it more than clear to the reader that what they are about to read are some true facts that most would be hesitant to believe.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston can be summed up in just a few words; intriguing and captivating, yet extremely alarming and fairly terrifying. This story chronicles the various different cases of the Ebola virus throughout the world and its excursion from the rainforests of central Africa to our very own Washington D.C. The virus’s proliferation not only caused extreme terror, but it led to the recruitment of a SWAT team consisting of military personnel, researchers, and scientists set out to control the epidemic.

“The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston is a famous nonfiction thriller detailing the vivid history of the Ebola virus and the terrifying consequences of its infections. Using a rich vocabulary to add as much imagery as possible, the novel immerses you in Ebola’s history and keeps you glued to the edge of your seat with suspenseful chapters that fill you with dreadful expectation. The novel is mostly well executed in it’s aim at keeping the reader engaged while still remaining true to science though it achieves most of its power by using what seems to be cheap scare tactics and over dramatization. To a reader without a scientific background “The Hot Zone” will be an exhilarating ride, but to others, it may be a slightly overwritten drama that tries

Part two of The Hot Zone is important to the rest of the text because a lot was revealed in part two. In part two the virus was almost given the wrong diagnosis of SHF, simian hemorrhagic fever. It was later discovered by Geisbert when he decided to reexamine the bacteria that their diagnosis was wrong and that they were dealing with a hot agent. Geisbert and Jharling sniffed the virus that they found out was ebola and could be at risk. This adds suspense and causes the reader to worry about the safety of both Geisbert and Jharling and also people around the world if the virus were to spread. And of course, once they find out that the virus is ebola they all come together to find a solution so that the world can remain danger free. They are

In this thrilling novel, The Hot Zone by Richard Preston tells the story of a virus so notorious for its mysterious attacks that it is deemed a Bio-safety Level 4 virus. Richard Preston acquired his inspiration and insight first from his curiosity in his visit to Africa to study epidemiology and second from certain contacts, Dr. C.J. Peters and Nancy Jaax, whom have helped to further Preston’s knowledge of Bio-safety Level 4 agents. Preston incorporates historical facts, interview encounters, and scientific evidence in this nonfiction story of a virus known as Ebola infecting many people and displaying grotesque symptoms such as vomiting blood and pale blue skin. I recommend this book to young readers, epidemiologists, and those interested

This book took place in the late 1980's, and it is based upon an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a monkey house located in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Reston, Virginia. The first occurrence of an Ebola-like virus (Marburg) takes place in Kenya and a French expatriate named Charles Monet is the first to die from this disease. His terrible and excruciatingly fatal death is described in the most horrific details by Preston. The hospital staff who treated Monet became infected with the virus as well, traveling fast throughout the hospital and carried on more deaths. The Marburg virus was first to explode in a vaccine factory in Germany in 1967. Over the next several chapters, the book describes outbreaks that occurred four years before Monet’s death. Preston then goes on to explaining how

“The disease spread like wildfire” (Osterath). As the year 2014 went along more and more people knew that Ebola was as serious of a disease as any. Ebola started in Sierra Leone a country in West Africa. The first case was recorded in March 23, 2014 “It was the largest and longest ebola outbreak in history” (Osterath). The disease itself is relatively old as it was first seen in 1976 in the country of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola comes from people eating wild animals like bats and monkeys who are the natural carrier of the disease. The disease is most commonly transmitted by blood and other bodily fluids.The Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone was one of the worst outbreaks in history. Ebola killed thousands of people and left the country and its people in a constant state of chaos.