The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone

Author	Richard Preston
Language	English
Publisher	Anchor
Publication date	1994
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (paperback and hardback)
Pages	422
ISBN	0-385-47956-5
OCLC	32052009
Dewey Decimal	614.5/7 20
LC Class	RC140.5 .P74 1995b

The Hot Zone is a best-selling 1994 non-fiction bio-thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving hemorrhagic fevers, particularly the Ebola and Marburg viruses. The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone".

The filoviruses Ebola and Marburg are Biosafety Level 4 agents. Biosafety Level 4 agents are extremely dangerous to humans because they are very infectious, have a high mortality rate, and there are no known prophylactics, treatments, or cures. Along with describing the history of these two Central Africa illnesses, Preston describes an incident in which Ebola was found in a Reston, Virginia, monkey quarantine facility less than fifteen miles away from Washington, DC.

The original Reston, VA facility located at 1946 Isaac Newton Square was torn down sometime between 1995 and 1998.

Synopsis

The book is divided into four sections:

• "The Shadow of Mount Elgon" delves into the history of these infectious agents, as well as speculation about the origins of AIDS. Preston accounts the story of "Charles Monet" (a pseudonym), who caught Marburg from a cave on Mount Elgon near his home in central Africa. The author describes in great detail the progression of the disease, from the initial headache and backache, to the final stage in which Monet's internal organs fail and he "bleeds out" (i.e., hemorrhages extensively) in a waiting room in a Nairobi hospital. This part also talks about the promising young doctor who becomes infected with Marburg from treating Monet. Nancy Jaax's story is told. Viruses, and biosafety levels and procedures are described. The Ebola Sudan and Ebola Zaire outbreaks are mentioned. Preston talks to the man who named Ebola.
• "The Monkey House" The discovery of Ebola Reston virus among imported monkeys in Reston, Virginia, and the following actions taken by the U.S. Army and Center for Disease Control.
• "Smashdown" is more on the Reston outbreak, which involved a strain of the virus that does not affect humans but which easily spreads by air, and is very similar to its cousin the Ebola Zaire virus.
• "Kitum Cave" The author visits the cave that is the suspected home of the natural host animal that ebola lives inside of.

The book starts with "Charles Monet" visiting Kitum Cave during a camping trip to Mount Elgon in Central Africa. Not long after, he begins to suffer from a number of symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea and red eye. He is soon taken to Nairobi Hospital for treatment, but his condition deteriorates further and he goes into a coma while in the waiting room. He dies, but not before a Doctor named Shem Musoke, attempting to insert a laryngoscope, is infected by exposure to Charle's blood and vomit. Musoke is one of the few to become symptomatic from a filovirus and survive. This particular filovirus is called Marburg.

Dr. Nancy Jaax had been promoted to work in the Level 4 Biosafety containment area at USAMRIID, and is assigned to research the Ebola virus. While preparing food for her family at home, she cuts her right hand. Later, while working on a dead, ebola-infected monkey, one of the gloves on the hand with the open wound tears, and she is almost exposed to contaminated blood, but does not get infected. Meanwhile, Peter Cardinal, a blond ten-year-old visits Kitum Cave and does not survive his infection. Nurse Mayinga is also infected by a nun and elects to visit Nairobi Hospital for treatment, where she succumbs to the disease. A CDC team arrives to collect samples of the virus for study.

In Reston, Virginia, less than fifteen miles away from Washington, DC, a company called Hazelton Research once operated a quarantine center for monkeys that were destined for laboratories. In October of 1989, when an unusually high number of their monkeys began to die, their veterinarian decided to send some samples to Fort Detrick (USAMRIID) for study. At the time, it was believed that the virus was Simian hemorrhagic fever virus, a viral hemorrhagic fever harmless to humans but almost always fatal to other primates (see zoonosis). Early during the testing process in biosafety level 3, when one of the flasks appeared to be contaminated with harmless pseudomonas bacterium, two USAMRIID scientists exposed themselves to the virus by wafting the flask. When they eventually tested the samples with known Level 4 agents, only the Ebola Zaire strain had a reaction with the unknown samples. They decided not to tell anyone about their exposure, but they did secretly test their blood every day. After one of the monkey house staff members becomes ill with violent nausea and vomiting, USAMRIID is given permission to send in a team to euthanize all the monkeys at the facility and collect tissue samples. They later determine that, while the virus is terrifyingly lethal to monkeys, humans can be infected with it without any health effects at all. They name the ebola virus strain Ebola Reston.

Finally, the author himself goes into Africa to explore Kitum Cave. On the way, he discusses the role of AIDS in the present, as the highway they were on, sometimes called the "AIDS Highway," was where it first appeared. Equipped with a Hazmat suit, he enters the cave and finds a large number of animals, one of which might be the virus carrier. At the conclusion of the book, he travels to the quarantine facility in Reston. The building there was abandoned and deteriorating.

Reception

Due to the detailed and graphic descriptions of the effects of exotic tropical diseases, as well as the revelation that Ebola was found a few miles away from Washington D.C., The Hot Zone was hailed by many as a chilling and accurate story of lethal viruses and their encounters with humans. Because Preston's writing style is that of a "science fact" thriller, some critics accused Preston of dramatizing and exaggerating the effects of an Ebola infection and embellishing facts with his own imagination. Since its publication over a decade ago, however, The Hot Zone is generally regarded as a nonfiction work and acknowledged for its masterful dramatization. The Hot Zone served as the loose basis of the Hollywood movie Outbreak (1995) about military machinations surrounding a fictional "Motaba virus." In his blurb, horror writer Stephen King called the book, "one of the most horrifying things I've ever read." When asked whether any book "scared the pants off you", television writer Suzanne Collins answered, "The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston. I just read it a few weeks ago. Still recovering."

See also

• C.J. Peters
• Hot zone (environment)

References

Bibliography

• Moeller, Susan D. (1999). Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death (1 ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 82. ISBN 978-0415920988. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Further reading

• Preston, Richard (1995-07-20) [1994]. The Hot Zone, A Terrifying True Story. Anchor Books (Random House), Sagebrush Education Resources, Tandem Library Books. ISBN 0-385-47956-5. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |origmonth= and |origdate= (help)

External links

• CNN Article on Ebola
• Joseph B. McCormick, MD at New York Academy of Sciences