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The Deadly Ebola Virus In The Hot Zone By Richard Preston

443 Words2 Pages

The Hot Zone Reflection
In this book The Hot Zone, Richard Preston writes about the deadly Ebola virus that kills 9 out of 10 people. He follows scientist on their investigation to find out the origins of the virus and discover it’s traits, on the journey telling horrifying accidents and misjudgments happening due to the Ebola virus. In The Hot Zone, Preston uses Ebola to explore the risk that existed around the world of Ebola and scientist that come in contact with the disease through experiments, and the risk of Ebola reaching and spreading through societies in the United States, causing an epidemic and more deaths.
For instance, the Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Jaax story is quite mind blowing. Her story illustrates that not only the victims but the doctors and scientists willing to risk their own lives to treat and investigate these mysterious outbreaks. As she’s experimenting with the test monkeys that had died of Ebola , she takes the most daring decision …show more content…

The consequences of handling the new found strain of Ebola is extremely high, resulting in an epidemic throughout the nation and maybe even more. Colonel C.J Peters and Nancy Jaax considers the catastrophic effect that Ebola would have on this quiet, peaceful community. Many of these problems arise due to human error, in fact even though USAMRIID tells the employees at the monkey house to stop working, they don’t pay attention to the words and see the risks of entering the contaminated building. This ignorance could have caused a disaster and all the responsibilty would have to be put on the USAMRIID and monkey house. Preston makes it clear in “The Hot Zone” that the potential for a devastating outbreak can be determined by a single member of the human

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