The Hot ZoneBy: Richard Preston
Best-selling author Richard Preston has mastered the art of intertwining non-fiction with science fiction. As a writer for the New Yorker and author of both fiction and non-fiction books, he specializes in telling the untold, especially when it concerns diseases. “The Hot Zone” is a thrilling true story of the events that unfolded around the closest the United States had come, at that time, to an Ebola outbreak. Preston raises compelling questions surrounding the mystery of this deadly virus and reports on the race, conducted by some of the world’s most elite scientists, to find anything that could stop it. The Reston Primate Quarantine Unit located in Reston, Virginia, part of the Hazleton Research Products company, imported around sixteen thousand wild monkeys a year. After too many unexplained deaths in the monkey house, caretaker Dan Dalgard contacted Army specialists at Fort Detrick. Preston is there every step of the way as the scientists dash to figure out exactly what they are dealing with. Adding even more to the fear-factor, Preston recounts, in vivid detail, the past outbreaks and deaths that have plagued the African continent. All the while reminding his readers there is no cure, in fact, there is little knowledge at all of the Ebola virus. This foreshadowing sets the stage for a catastrophic set of events. Ebola falls under the filovirus category, and scientists have found three of these deadly organisms, all slightly different but all very closely related. Marburg: the first found virus and considered the gentle sister, Ebola Sudan: the second and more dangerous sibling, and Ebola Zaire: the most deadly strain known to man thus far. Marburg originally erupted in a monkey colony which was shipped to Germany and eventually jumped to humans where it killed about one fourth of those infected. Ebola Sudan appeared a few years later, hopping from village to village, where it would kill nearly half of those infected. Shortly after that Ebola Zaire made her appearance, spreading like wildfire through an estimated fifty villages and killing ninety percent of those infected. Preston describes in gruesome detail what contracting a filovirus means for the human body. It liquidates insides, makes skin fall off, and turns the host into a walking time bomb capable of infecting hundreds of people. Preston paints a bold picture for his readers, most notably saying, “Ebola does in ten days what it takes AIDS ten years to accomplish.” Richard Preston’s in depth reporting and hands on research comprises a large amount of his allure as a writer. He checks facts, stories, and angles in order to find out the most that he can about his subjects and their exploits. Also, he frequently narrates emotional accounts from his characters’ in order to truly immerse the reader in the story. This being such an important factor in his research, Preston focuses a lot on small details; getting down to the nitty gritty. This can be a great asset to a writer, it takes away from the large concepts leaving room for the mystery of a science thriller. Elusive chapter headings and references to other science fiction novels and movies are two notable fear tactics. Although, Preston’s intentional attempts at scaring his readers become child’s play in light of his unintentional foretelling of events. “The Hot Zone” concludes by saying, “Ebola had risen in these rooms, flashed its colors, fed, and subsided into the forest. It will be back.” And Preston could not have been more correct if he had seen the future himself. This prolific sentence is supported by the thoughts of scientists and researchers, many of them believing Ebola could be our species-threatening catalyst And then, the 2015 Ebola Outbreak began. This outbreak concentrated in West Africa, beginning in Guinea and then spreading like wildfire through Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and more. To date there have been 28,476 cases and 11,298 deaths. The initial recognition that Ebola was again spreading through the human population was several months late, which allowed it to infect people rapidly and without containment. While there were minimal European and North American cases, the ripples of this event spread worldwide. Most notably, mass panic. The World Health Organization, United Nations, Center for Disease Control, Doctors Without Borders, as well as many other organizations jumped into action in an attempt to protect the world from the “species threatening event” Preston described. So, if Preston's predictions could come so true 20 years after "The Hot Zone" was published, what is our next catastrophic event? Which of us, in 2015, is predicting the Ebola-like affliction of 2035? And this time around, will we take them for seriously, or will we allow ourselves to come even closer to destruction? |