Ebola Virus: The Hot Zone By Richard Preston

Ebola Virus The Hot Zone was written by Richard Preston. The book is about how the Ebola virus started and where it came from. It was discovered in Africa. The virus was first called The Marburg Virus. It originated in East Africa from monkeys. The monkeys were very sick, but were being sold to people and the virus was passed to humans. This virus kills 25% of its victims. It causes deaths because it attacks the organs which causes extreme bleeding and blood clots.

Charles Monet was the first person to contract the disease. He lived in Kenya, Africa. He was exposed to it when he was exploring Mount Elgon. Soon after, he returned from his exploration, he became very sick and he had to travel to Nairobi hospital. During his flight, he started

Here, the virus was called Ebola Zaire and the virus spread faster here because the doctors were not using clean needles when treating patients. Once the world noticed what was happening, doctors from all over the world travelled there to try to find a cure. Later on, with the help of the samples of dead boy, Doctor Johnson figured out it was the Marburg Virus. Johnson then discovered that the boy and Monet had both explored the same caves. So, it was determined that the original virus came from the caves, but they could not find the exact source within the caves. The monkeys came in contact with the virus and then transmitted it to

He sought help from a scientist Peter Jahrling. Dalgard sent out sample of the blood for review. The blood was analyzed and it was determined that the virus was a fever that causes death in monkeys, but cannot harm humans. Later on, they realized that the virus was deadly to humans and that they might be exposed. They decided to keep this a secret because this was either Ebola or something related to it. The doctors ended up informing the authorities and officials that needed to know about the disease. Everyone came to together to research the disease and to figure out what to do. The US Army took over the task of securing the monkeys which was called The Hot Zone. They all worked to euthanize the monkeys in order to keep the people safe. Hundreds of monkeys were killed. In the end, a few people contracted the virus, but they did not have any severe effects. This allowed scientists to learn that this version of the virus, which would be called Ebola Reston, can move through the air, but does not hurt humans. This was a different strain of the Ebola