The Hot Zone: The origins of Ebola

You may have heard about the Ebola virus. If so, you know the ultimate horrors it can do to the human mind, and worse of all, the body. Imagine feeling sick one day. You don't feel well, so you take an asprin. Next day, you cough up your blood in black vomit. Then, you become zombie-like, not being able to think like a person. Then, you crash and bleed. That's when you bleed out all your blood either inside, or you bleed out on the outside. (Outside of your body) It also kills 95% of its victims. Now imagine this virus with the fact that it is incredibly contagious. Now it sounds like it can, and will, if it gets the chance, wipe out humans. Well, The Hot Zone describes how close it came to doing just that.

     The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston captures the secrets of the deadly Ebola viruses, and their sister  virus Marburg. The book starts out describing The Marburg virus, a virus that makes people bleed out from under their skin, and cough up black bloody vomit. Disgusting but fascinating. It may sound hard to make that fascinating, but Richard Preston does it. The next part is about the Ebola Zaire virus, it has similar symptoms of the Marburg virus, but it kills more people. After Ebola Zaire is discovered officially, the attention switches from what it is to curing it. Sadly, there was no cure. After that, Ebola came the closest to killing off millions of humans. It was discovered outside of Washington D.C. in a monkey house, a business that supplies test monkeys from foreign countries. And you never know what happens in foreign countries. Obviously, nobody is very happy. The Army puts up countermeasures, and after much strife, the Virus is gone, receded into hiding, waiting to strike.

Biohazard team removing something possibly deadly from a hot zone.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and best (Or possibly worst) of all, it is all a true story! The endings to each chapter left me on the edge of my seat, yet it also included a lot of valuable information which is the best thing I will take away from it. The writing was good, but it jumped around too much to seem perfectly flowing. I enjoyed this book because of the facts and the way the author ended the chapters. The fluidity is something that made me somewhat confused as a reader, but nothing bad.

Wikipedia page for "The Hot Zone"
The authors website

The Hot Zone

 Most diseases or sicknesses you would get could be cured by sleeping it off or by medicine. But          imagine if you had a 95% chance of dying, and in an extremely painful way. What if that disease was suddenly found in the city you lived in?

The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, is a book about Ebola and its sister disease Marburg, two very deadly diseases , have been found in the suburbs of Washington DC, when they're usually found buried deep in the forests of Africa. Teams of elite scientists and the US army must find a way to stop these dangerous diseases from spreading, and wiping out thousands of people.

A micrograph of an Ebola cell
Picture from Wikipedia 

 One man, Monet, begins the spread of the disease Marburg from a deep forest in Africa to a major city. Doctors do not know what the disease is, and do not think very much of it. Marburg is extremely contagious, and a doctor operating on Monet catches it. Fast forward and a shipment of monkeys is delivered to a monkey house in the suburbs of Washington DC. It starts with a few monkeys dead, and then escalates. Test are done on them., and scientists see that the monkeys have blood in the intestines, and ruptured linings. Many blood and cell test are done, and they discover a horrible thing. It's Ebola Zaire. A level four hot agent, no vaccine, lethal, and there is no cure. It kill 95% of its victims, and can be transferred through blood and the air. If you get as much as one cell in your body, you're a goner, since it multiplies extremely fast. If it isn't obliterated fast, it will kill many people, and spread fast around the country, and possibly the whole world. 

This is a picture depicting the case of Ebola in Africa from 1979 to 2008
Picture from Wikipedia

I thought that this book had a good story, and that it was really interesting. However, some parts of it were confusing and I had to skip over them.  This book was very informative, and had a lot of information. I also liked how there was a story throughout the book, which made it more interesting to read seeing as I could follow the characters telling the story, rather than just having all the information thrown at me. While this book is interesting, it is definitely not a light read, since there is a lot of death and disgusting descriptions, and lots of more confusing information. This, however, does not mean that this isn't a good book, it just means that it is a more mature book.  

In all, I learned a lot from this book, and thought it was really informative. The writing style was good, and it was very suspenseful. And the best thing of all is that it's a true story.