![]() A major portion of the book is about this operation, which had to be conducted in secret, since public awareness could easily have meant widespread panic. The complicated and hazardous job required the donning of biological space suits, entering the monkey house (the ``hot zone''), killing each monkey, and retrieving tissue samples. ![]() ![]() The US Army quickly took over, and a SWAT team was sent in to halt the spread of the virus. When the cause was found to be Ebola, a particularly deadly filovirus, all hell broke loose. (about ten miles from Washington, D.C.), noted that its monkeys were dying off at an alarming rate and with suspicious symptoms. In the fall of 1989, a monkey- importing company with a primate quarantine unit in Reston, Va. Only micro-outbreaks have occurred so far, but the potential exists for worldwide catastrophe. Essentially, the body liquefies, spilling out billions of copies of the deadly virus, which can trigger an explosive chain of lethal transmission. Preston opens with a disturbingly graphic description of the meltdown of a human body invaded by a filovirus. The African rain forests from which HIV emerged are home to other viruses that make AIDS seem like child's play. A bone-chilling account of a close encounter with a lethal virus, by New Yorker writer Preston (American Steel, 1991). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |