The Virus: A Narrative Fiction

In the article “Are Viruses Alive?,” Luis P. Villarreal discusses the effects of viruses on life, while presenting different angles as to whether or not they are alive themselves and arguing about the impact viruses have had on evolution. Through a deeper understanding of viruses and their functions, the scientific community may come to fully appreciate viruses, whether they are living or non-living in themselves, as significant evolutionary components.

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 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

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

“Good. Then this should go real quick.” Rosie scurried down the hall. The breakroom was to her left. She noticed Hexson leaned on the vending machine, where the stranger from earlier had stood. He waved his arms, attempting to get Rosie’s attention, but she ignored the detective. Rosie had other business. It was time to build up the green civilian, and then watch him crash to the ground.

I recently read an article written in The NEWYORKER called The Deadliest Virus by Michael Specter. The article talked about the Avian Flu virus, also known as “bird flu”. In the article, Specter interviewed many people, but the most important person, in my opinion, is a virologist who conducted research on the Avian Flu, Ron Fouchier. This article raised many ethical questions. The questions are as followed: Should research be conducted on this virus? Does Fouchier’s research pose a threat? Does the risk of the work outweigh the benefits of the research?

I took a moment to reach inside of myself and watch the anger as it continued to swirl through my body. I noticed my shoulders suddenly relax. Anger created a boundary and protected me from helplessness and hopelessness that would have made me feel like a victim. I had handled my health for the past thirty years and even though I felt momentarily defeated, I was not about to give up. No, I would not step out of my power and no; I would not have a biopsy done. Instinctively, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that a biopsy would not lead to anything productive in this case. I would stand my ground and find other options. I would handle this in my own way. Again.

Stacy don’t open the door." Timmy whispered in a frightened voice. "I won't sweetheart I wont." As I pushed my back against the wall broken glass had splattered above my head and all over me. As soon as I felt the strange man grabbing my hair I stood up, away from the dangerous guy. "What do you want? Don’t hurt these innocent children!" As I yelled in a tone that I had never yelled in before, the threatening man opened the door. As soon as I noticed he had opened the door I stood in front of the children's desk with my hands held apart one to the left, as one to the right. "Please stop!" I yelled in a frightened voice. "Move out the way lady!" As the perilous man pushed me to the side he picked up the desk. Sarah still curled up in a ball. I noticed him picking her up. "Mrs. Stacy please don’t let him take me! Stop I don’t like you dad!" I was in shocked to hear Sarah's words coming out of her mouth. "Don’t come near me lady!" As Sarah's dad was about to leave the room I threw a chair at her dad's back. "Put her down I said!" As I shouted to him, he had left me unconscious there sitting on the

The soldiers have grown accustomed to the horrors of war, but they have been forced to endure it for so long that by this point they are all close to breaking. They can no longer envision any life other than the endless repeated days of the war. Paul states that war is almost like a virus. For the longest time, Paul and his comrades have fought off the virus, but they are too weak, too tired, and too hopeless. With this growing fragileness of their brains, the virus is slowly infecting the soldiers. They start to think that their end is coming; and maybe it’s not a bad thing. Germany is losing the war, more people are dying every day, and the ones who are alive can’t take much more.

Looking through the dusty back window of the 1998 Volkswagen we were in, I sat and watched the colony disappear from view as the dark night began to swallow it whole. I had wanted to leave for forever, but there was always a firm grasp which kept me there, my family. A single tear slips from my eye, rolls down my wind-burnt cheek, and clings tightly to my chin before its final descent into the open air. As a child, I too clung tightly to familiarity, but now, with my future at stake, it's time to flee, to leave behind everything, and embrace the rush of the unknown. I reach my hand across the center console and rest it on the back of Ethan’s soft hand. The warmth of his love momentarily fills the lull in my heart where my

I was trying to run as fast as I can from my village. I knew the Black Plague was coming after me. I was only a mile away from the outside of London. My village, Lakonia , everyone died but my dog and I. The year was 1466. I could hear people talking from ahead. After another couple minutes of running, I was in London. No one seemed in pain or infected. I knew this was the place for my dog, Scar, and I, Titan.

It was cold and lifeless like a wasteland where the disease made everything cold and dead like a nuke just happened. Some survivors were prepared for this though and one of them was me. The bunker I grew up in was a neighborhood but underground. A lot of valuables were lost while the infection devoured everyone and everything that it could see, and killed it or burned it in side to the out. The years past by and a lot of things were in motion we built the virus filter and a new clean society. I grew up trying to know what happened what the virus did it looks like it made you think of the life ahead of you positive.I wanted to find out how it spread so I joined the forensic scientist for police. Detective too I had the longest and most important

Finally, finally, the sirens stop. It’s so sudden, flooding the air with a moment of silence. My ears start to pick up the city noise again, faint and comforting in its normality. I hear footsteps behind my, and I turn to meet them. Two police officers are approaching me carefully, their guns drawn. What’s happening? Why do they look like they’re coming for me? I didn’t do anything. Questions flicker through my mind, none of them staying long enough for me to answer them.

An invisible organism enters your body. It penetrates into your tissues and then takes over the machinery in your own cells to make more copies of itself. This tiny infiltrator works silently, producing thousands of these clones that fill up the cell and cause it to explode. The clones mercilessly continue the process of invading, taking over and destroying cells. The result might be a minor inconvenience to you as the host, or it could result in a slow or rapid death. It depends only on which variant of this unwanted infiltrator overcomes your body’s defenses. There are cures to wipe out some types of these invisible intruders, but others are so difficult to eradicate or so readily adaptable, that the world’s greatest scientists

Normally infecting fruit bats, the Ebola virus found a mutation allowing it to spread to humans. This virus is an acute and often fatal illness. This virus first erupted in two outbreaks in 1976 (one occurring in Nzara and Sudan, while the other occurred in a village near the Ebola river, where the virus takes its name.) The current outbreak, starting in West Africa with the potential to spread throughout the world,  is  larger and more complex than previous outbreaks. This virus has caused more deaths than all other past Ebola outbreaks combined. With approximately five people infected with the virus every hour in Sierra Leone alone, how far – and how fast – will the Ebola virus go?