In scene after scene, the author vividly re-creates the drama: Villagers throw rocks at epidemiologists during a burial, nearly killing them. Preston tells engrossing human stories of doctors and patients while providing a clear understanding of Ebola, from its genetic code and mutations to its terrible impacts on victims (fever, paralysis, diarrhea, etc.). Moreover, it posed the nightmare threat of spreading into populous cities. First detected in 1976 near Zaire’s Ebola River, where it jumped across species into humans, the virus returned with deadly force in the 2013 outbreak recounted here, infecting 30,000 villagers and killing 11,000. In this richly detailed narrative, he plunges readers into the “horrifying chaos” of overcrowded field-hospital wards in Sierra Leone, where “disoriented, infected patients” wander while scientists across the world scurry to identify a contagious disease for which there is no treatment or cure. “Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time,” writes New Yorker contributor Preston ( Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science, 2008, etc.). A sequel of sorts to the landmark bestseller The Hot Zone (1994), this time with a focus on the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak in the forests of West Africa.
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