- Random House Trade
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Viruses to Come
Key Metrics
- Richard Preston
- Random House Trade
- Paperback
- 9780812988154
- 7.9 X 5.1 X 0.9 inches
- 0.65 pounds
- Health & Fitness > Diseases - Contagious (incl. Pandemics)
- English
Book Description
Crisis in the Red Zone reads like a thriller. That the story it tells is all true makes it all more terrifying.--Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction
From the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone, now a National Geographic original miniseries . . .
This time, Ebola started with a two-year-old child who likely had contact with a wild creature and whose entire family quickly fell ill and died. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire. By the end--as the virus mutated into its deadliest form, and spread farther and faster than ever before--30,000 people would be infected, and the dead would be spread across eight countries on three continents.In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston deeply chronicles the pandemic, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. Rich in characters and conflict--physical, emotional, and ethical--Crisis in the Red Zone is an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time.
Preston writes of doctors and nurses in the field putting their own lives on the line, of government bureaucrats and NGO administrators moving, often fitfully, to try to contain the outbreak, and of pharmaceutical companies racing to develop drugs to combat the virus. He also explores the charged ethical dilemma over who should and did receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment when they became available at the peak of the disaster.
Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013-2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined--in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before.
The more we discover about the virosphere, the more we realize its deadly potential. Crisis in the Red Zone is an exquisitely timely book, a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come.
Author Bio
Richard Preston is a bestselling author of 10 books, nonfiction and fiction, whose works reveal hidden worlds of nature and wonder. His books have been published in more than 35 languages. Preston is a contributor to the The New Yorker, and all of his nonfiction books have first appeared as articles there.
His awards include the American Institute of Physics science-writing award and the National Magazine Award, and he’s the only non-physician ever to receive the Centers for Disease Control’s Champion of Prevention Award. An asteroid has been named for him. Asteroid 3792 Preston travels on a wild orbit near Mars, and could some day slam into the earth.
Source: richard-preston.net
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