The Hot Zone Book Summary The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a true story about an outbreak of the Ebola virus, just outside of Washington D.C. in the 1980’s. Early in the story, the author describes a series of several outbreaks that took place in Africa, in order to describe the true destruction of this very lethal virus. The first appearance of this virus happens in a cave in Kenya. The virus infects Charles Monet, and then he is later taken to a hospital where his bloody death is described in
Preston's Hot Zone Imagine walking into a tiny village in Africa, suffering and dying from some unknown virus. As you approach the huts you hear the wails of pure agony from the afflicted tribe members. Coming closer, you smell the stench of vomit mixed with the bitter smell of warm blood. People inside lay dying in pools of their own vital fluids, coughing and vomiting up their own liquefied internal organs; their faces emotionless masks loosely hanging from their skulls, the connective tissue
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying New Story (1995) written by Richard Preston describes the history and terrifying outbreak of several strains of level 4 biosafety hot agents specifically including, Ebola. Preston strategically divides his novel into four parts; “The Shadow of Mount Elgon”, “The Monkey House”, “Smashdown” and “Kitum Cave”, starting with some of the first known cases, moving through the progression of the disease then finishing with his own trip to the suspected home of the virus. He starts
Thomas Clontz 1st Period 1/14/14 The Hot Zone Summary I acknowledge this is the final copy of my own original work and all resources have been cited appropriately. The novel, “The Hot Zone”, by Richard Preston, is an extraordinary tale about a virus called the Ebola virus. The author interviews a number of different people that all had encounters with the virus and records their stories. He is very interested by what they tell him and throughout the novel he is always seeking to find more information
“The Hot Zone,” by Richard Preston, is a thriller true story that explains an incident in a suburb outside of Washington D.C. in 1989. The book focuses on four Biohazard level 4 viruses: Marburg, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Reston. In the beginning we are introduced to some background cases, such as Charles Monet and Dr. Shem Musoke. As the book goes on we learn about how a strain of the Ebola virus broke out at a monkey facility, outside of the nation’s capital, in Reston, Virginia. The
Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone is about the Reston virus, one of the five strands of Ebola, and its outbreak in Virginia in 1989, which startled the eastern United States. The story begins with a hot zone of the Ebola virus, Kitum Cave, in order to provide background information towards the virus and its hunger to take hold of a host. Over the course of the story Preston depicts the viral effects, emphasizes the passion of the scientist, and conveys the bravery in an almost disastrous situation.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston In October of l989, Macaque monkeys, housed at the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit in Reston, Virginia, began dying from a mysterious disease at an alarming rate. The monkeys, imported from the Philippines, were to be sold as laboratory animals. Twenty-nine of a shipment of one hundred died within a month. Dan Dalgard, the veterinarian who cared for the monkeys, feared they were dying from Simian Hemorrhagic Fever, a disease lethal to monkeys but harmless to
“The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus” by Richard Preston presents the true story of Ebola’s origin’s in an entertaining yet realistic manner. Preston does a fantastic job introducing the reader to Ebola and Marburg, their transmission routes, symptoms, and how research is done in Hot Labs. Ebola and Marburg are filo viruses shaped like tangled ropes or intertwines snakes. Once they’ve infected their patients, they wreak havoc on the connective and intestinal
The Hot Zone is a novel detailing the effects of the limitations of human knowledge, fear, and bureaucracy on a society afflicted by a deadly viral outbreak. The book gives account to an Ebola virus outbreak taking place in the 1980’s after experiencing a similar, factual, encounter with the virus in 1976. The story begins in Kenya, where Charles Monet is infected with the Marburg virus. Preston uses Monet’s infection and the historical context of the virus as a means of drawing fear from the
In The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, the account of the evolution of Ebola—where it originated and how it spread throughout Africa and other parts of the world before finally making its way to the United States—the point of view was not biased or fallacious, though it may have been slightly exaggerated. However, despite this, it was also the perfect choice of point of view to tell the story in. The point of view is considered to be omniscient third person narrative, meaning that the narrator, in
AUTHOR: Richard Preston PUBLISHER: Random House DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1994 Setting: The setting g takes place in two major places. Reston Maryland which is a suburb of Washington DC. and the second major area is in Kenya Africa. The story takes place in the 1980's. Main Characters: Since this story is a true story there is no one character that is a main character. The author does not create the story around any one main character so I'll just list every character I can remember from the book. 1.
In “Contagion and in “The Hot Zone” when confronted with an outbreak in the United States, technology both helped spread the virus and aid in its containment by connecting the world. Some brief ways it helped spread was the ease of going anywhere in the world by airplane within twenty four hours. A way that it helped contain the outbreak was the high level technology that we have and how we can stop the spread of a virus and make a vaccine against it. One of the ways that having such advanced technology
first illustrating fatal cases in gory detail and then exploring both the origins and ethics of Ebola, not solely in Africa but in the Institute Laboratory, where individuals subjected themselves to working with level four biohazards in manmade hot zones; utilizing both scenarios to scrutinize the government’s underestimation of the primary strain and inculcated measures of awareness. Preston’s dramatized presentation exposes his purpose of uncovering the epidemiology and progression of the Ebola
viruses that human kind has ever seen. They seem to affect most of the body and it?s organs with some rather gruesome symptoms. Although most die ending their suffering, some survive to relay the story of their pain. The Marburg virus described in “The Hot Zone” , by Richard Preston, exemplifies these new gruesome viruses well. A person is infected with the virus through sexual contact or contact with bodily fluid(29,39). After infection, the symptoms begin within seven days(14). The symptoms begin with
great detail. I would absolutely recommend anyone to read this book. It keeps you on the edge and is very thrilling and educational. It allows you to truly and thoroughly understand the process of virus transmission as well as precautions. The Hot Zone is a nonfictional book that was published in 1994 based
Synopsis: The author of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston, did a phenomenal job of describing the real life events that dealt with the multiple types of Ebola viruses. The author begins by describing true events that took place in Africa. The outbreaks Preston uses involve Marburg, Ebola Sudan, and Ebola Zaire, which are all filoviruses or sister viruses. These events all led up to an outbreak that happened in Reston, VA near Washington, D.C. In each one of the events, the author describes the affect
origin. In some aspects the argument proposed causes contradiction. The more people helping the quicker the epidemic will dissolve. However, the more people working on the Ebola cases, the higher infection rate increases. When dealing with a contagious hot agent all known cases must be reported. A CDC employee in Liberia explains that most accounts of Ebola go unnoticed. About “40 to 60%” (Cohen, 2014, p. 1). This suggest that people are not vocalizing their sickness. Many patients are scared of the strangers
Hot Zone explicitly demonstrates the quick spread of the Ebola virus and human’s efforts to fight back the filoviruses (Ebola Zaire, Ebola Reston, Marburg, and Ebola Sudan). Richard Preston, the author, starts the book with the story of Charles Monet, a Frenchman who lives near the Nzoia Sugar Factory in western Kenya. On New Year’s Eve, he takes a trip to Mount Elgon where Kitum Cave is located. After his trip, he acquires a severe headache, backache, and red eyes, he starts to vomit, and his personality
The medical field is a vast land of beauty but with great beauty comes immense horror. There are many deadly viruses and diseases found in the medical field. In the novel, The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, the author discusses the many deadly viruses found in the field. The viruses are widespread due to the errors that occur when the viruses are in the presence of human beings. The effects of the errors performed by the human race include a decrease in population and wildlife. The viruses are spread
In the novel The Hot Zone, the author, Richard Preston, does a wonderful job in explaining and describing how the Ebola and Marburg viruses affect the body through real experiences from the deaths of some of the infected people, as well as the researchers from the CDC and