Hot Zone Essay

548 Words3 Pages
In the novel The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, an outbreak of the Ebola, Marburg and Reston viruses emerged in 1976, triggering panic across the world. The virus emerged in a number of different places under many different circumstances, but no one seemed to know where it originated, what caused it, and most importantly, how to treat it. After the outbreaks were first discovered, epidemiologists have been studying the viruses to try to learn more about them. They make connections between the locations of the outbreaks and the symptoms of the patients. For example, in the novel, monkeys at a housing building where they were kept started getting sick and dying. After testing positive for the Marburg virus, the epidemiologists traced the monkeys back to the Philippines, where a host monkey must have picked up the virus and gave it to the other monkeys surrounding him. Universal precautions are always used in order to prevent the spread of diseases. People who work with diseases and viruses wear a protective suit, depending on the Biosafety level of the agent they are working with. Because the Ebola and Marburg viruses are Biosafety Level-4, the highest there is, workers must wear hazmat suits, masks, face protectors, gloves and boots. Their suits must constantly be checked for holes and rips, since one tiny hole can let in an extremely dangerous and deadly agent. Before and after working with the materials, workers must decontaminate themselves by thoroughly washing their hands and taking a chemical shower. Infected patients are often quarantined, like the sick nurses and monkeys, so that the disease is contained and can’t spread to any others. Infected dead bodies are carefully wrapped and disposed of, since a virus is not necessarily dead just because the host is. Body fluids such as saliva and blood are also cleaned up cautiously and completely with chemicals. For

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