Discussing Bio-Safety in The Hot Zone

The Hot Zone is a true story of how Bio-safety level 4 hot agents have affected the lives of different people. The first incident is about Charles Monet a water-pump machinist at a sugar factory in Kenya, who went exploring with a friend in Kitman Cave; sixteen days later he lay dead in an intensive care unit. He bled out from every orifice in his body, his kidneys and liver destroyed, partially liquefied, his insides were that of a corpse. The cause of death was undetermined. Ten days after treating Monet, Dr. Muskoe falls ill.. Monet had vomited a black, bloody coffee ground substance all over him. The vomit had gotten into his eyes and even into his mouth. After several futile attempts to cure and diagnose himself he finally seeks the help of his physician. After exploratory surgery yielded no diagnosis Muskoe's physician suspects a virus. He sends a sample of Muskoe's blood to the National Institute of Virology and to the CDC. Muskoe's blood is positive for the filovirus Marsburg, a deadly sister to Ebola virus. Muskoe miraculously survives.

Three years later, The United States Army Medical Research Institute is conducting research on monkeys injected with the Mayinga strain of Ebola Zaire virus in effort to develop a vaccine. Ebola, which is believed to be transmitted through blood and body fluids, somehow infects control monkeys across a room.

Another four years go by uneventful until a ten year old boy dies in Nairobi of Marsburg virus. He had also recently visited Kitman Cave. This provokes an expedition of the site. The researchers find nothing linking Marsburg to Kitman Cave.

A year later, in Reston Virginia, a monkey house used to quarantine imported monkeys before they can be shipped out to parts of the United States, was losing monkeys to an unknown virus. All the characters of "The Hot Zone" are called together to discover and contain the unknown killer. The research team discovers this is a new strain of Ebola. This one definitely is airborne. They call it Ebola Reston. Unlike it's sister viruses, it doesn't seem to jump species. It is traced to Manila, Philippines where the monkeys originated, which is a mystery since Ebola is an African disease. The monkey house is decontaminated. Its contents, including the dead monkeys are incinerated. After another year, the monkey house is back in use. Ironically, monkeys shipped there from Manila begin dying from the Ebola virus again.