Character Analysis: The Hot Zone By Richard Preston

Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.” This passionate quote by Jim Butcher could easily be applied to one of Richard Preston´s most distinguished novels, in which there is no scarcity of irrational and incompetent characters.. In The Hot Zone, Preston illustrates a magnitude of situations in which errors, whether caused by stupidity or by a lack of proper equipment, contribute to the spread of infectious viruses.
Richard Preston describes many situations in which characters lacking intelligence are allowed to be working in delicate medical occupations. When he

writes about the Ebola Zaire outbreak in Yambuku, he says, ¨They were using five needles a day to give injections to hundreds of people in the hospital's outpatient and maternity clinics. The nuns and staff occasionally rinsed the needles in a pan of warm water after an injection, to get the blood off the needle, but more often they proceeded from shot to shot without rinsing the needle, moving from arm to arm, mixing blood with blood¨(99). This is one demonstration of how an error went on to become a disaster. As a result of the Yambuku hospital staff´s carelessness, Ebola Zaire emerged in fifty-five villages around the hospital.
Initially it killed those who had gotten injections, but it made its way into their kin and so on.

Even more significant is it´s chain of infection through the nuns. Preston delves further when he illuminates the segment in which Nurse Mayinga, who had been infected through contact with Sister M.E of the Yambuku hospital, roams the city of Kinshasa and has contact with over three dozen people.. He writes, ¨At any rate, Nurse Mayinga developed a headache and fatigue. She knew she was becoming sick, but she did not want to admit to herself what it was¨(100). When authorities like the World Health Organization and international governments became aware of this, panic ensued. President Mobutu of Zaire dispatched his army to enforce a quarantine around Ngaliema Hospital, which housed Nurse Mayinga, and the Bumba Zone. Soon afterwards, those who had had contact with Mayinga were contained and the calamity passed; Nurse Mayinga infected nobody. Despite this, her traipse through the city ensured that everyone knew just how easily a worldwide plague could be brought about. Prestons immersive descriptions of the aforementioned elucidates that errors in the medical field could clearly be fostered by people whose actions weren’t entirely rational.
The author also paints a picture of situations in which a lack of proper medical equipment leads to the spread of diseases. When describing Mr. Yu. G, the first known person with Ebola Sudan, who´s chain of infection traveled throughout south Sudan into a hospital in the town of Maridi, he writes, ¨Apparently the medical staff had been giving patients injections with dirty needles¨(98). This is a prime example of how the error of medical staff can manage to worsen a disaster. Rather than transmitting from person

to

person, the virus exploded within the hospital and infected patients, their families, and the medical staff. Further, when Preston writes about the schoolteacher and his friends buying fresh antelope from a street market and a monkey, he says, ¨Any of the friends could have handled the monkey or the antelope meat while they were bouncing around in the Land Rover¨ (99). Perhaps one friend got monkey blood on his fingers and happened to touch the antelope meat. In any case, the school teacher got sick and went to receive an injection at Yambuku Hospital. The Yambuku Hospital in which they had been using 5 needles to give injections to hundreds of patients daily. In this situation, a seemingly minor error led to the emergence of Ebola Zaire in 55 villages and the start of a panic with Nurse Mayinga. Preston is clearly apt at writing immersive circumstances in which the absence of necessary medical equipment could set in motion the spread of infectious diseases like Ebola Sudan and Ebola Zaire.
Through his vivid accounts of human errors, Preston effectively communicates his point; that some humans are particularly good at contributing to the spread of infectious diseases. However, one can conclude that through these errors, much was learned that would prevent future global outbreaks. As Bertolt Brecht fittingly said, “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.”