Good & Scary!

I like a good scary story---those imaginary nightmare scenarios that a good author brings to life in the pages of a suspense or horror novel. But what makes The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston truly scary is that everything in it really happened. (And it could happen again.) It's a very compelling....and frightening read. I couldn't put it down.

Here are some of the scary facts from The Hot Zone that just might keep you up at night:

• The Marburg virus and the three identified strains of Ebola are Level 4 agents.  "A Level 4 hot agent is a lethal virus for which there is no vaccine and no cure."  
• "No one knew where any of (these) filoviruses came from; no one knew where they lived in nature...And they didn't know exactly how the virus spread, or how it jumped from host to host."
• "The worst of them was Ebola Zaire. The kill rate in humans infected with Ebola Zaire is nine out of ten. Ebola Zaire is a slate wiper in humans."
• "From the moment Ebola enters your bloodstream, the war is already lost...you can't fight off Ebola the way you fight off a cold."  (Although some people do recover from it.)
• "We don't really know what Ebola has done in the past, and we don't know what it might do in the future."
• "....viruses never go away; they only hide..."

Happy Reading!

Other "scary" reads to check out:

Spillover:  Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen

Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC by Joseph B. McCormick