Book Report: The Hot Zone By Richard Preston

Part I of Essay
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 ....

Part II of Essay
.... to the list of strains: Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, and now, Reston. These are all level-four hot viruses. That means there are no vaccines and there are no cures for these killers. In 1976 Ebola climbed out of its primordial hiding place in the jungles of Africa, and in two outbreaks in Zaire and Sudan wiped out six hundred people. But the virus had never been seen outside of Africa and the consequences of having the virus in a busy suburb of Washington DC is too terrifying to contemplate. Theoretically, an airborne strain of Ebola could emer ....