Analysis of The Hot Zone by Robert Preston Essay -- Hot Zone Robert Pr

Analysis of The Hot Zone by Robert Preston The Hot Zone written by Robert Preston is a true story describing twenty-three years of shocking and frightening outbreaks of three deadly, incurable filoviruses: Marburg, Ebola Sudan, and Ebola Zaire. In the book, these highly infectious viruses sweep through Africa with a horrifying and devastating range of effects, killing 50% to 90% of their victims. The filoviruses did not remain in the rain forest of central Africa; they also appeared on the other side of the world in the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit in Reston, Virginia. The virus had never been seen outside of Africa until 1967 when the Ebola virus climbed out of its hiding place in the jungles of Africa and landed in Germany and Yugoslavia which is where the first recorded outbreak of Marburg virus occurred. It appeared in July 1976. A storekeeper in a cotton factory in Nzara, about 800 km from Mount Elgon, died from the marburge virus. Two months later, another 800 km west, Ebola virus erupted in Zaire. These outbreaks wiped out six hundred people Killing 70% of the infected people. Victims of the Ebola virus usually "crash and bleed," with in ten days. 'Crash and bleed' is a military term which describes the attack of the virus on every organ of the body and transforming the structures into digested slime hot with the virus. In October of l989, Macaque monkeys, housed in the unit in Reston, Virginia, began dying from a mysterious disease at an alarming rate. ...