crisis in the red zone by richard preston

Some epidemiologists estimated if not contained in time over a million people would have been sickened. At its height, the Ebola virus was “roughly as contagious as the seasonal flu” but exponentially more life-threatening - over 11,000 people died in 21 months. These words aren’t typically found in most beach reads, yet the book is impossible to put down. “Their faces went blank, they hiccupped, they had nosebleeds, they become demented, and then, as the disease progressed, they expelled black blood from the anus.” “There was something demonic about the illness,” he writes. Preston isn’t squeamish, and he expects his readers to be similarly strong-stomached. “ Crisis in the Red Zone” chronicles the viral outbreak in 20 that started in equatorial Africa and ravaged field hospitals in places like Sierra Leone. Richard Preston’s terrifying “ Crisis in the Red Zone” reads like a zombie apocalyptic thriller but is the nonfiction follow-up to his runaway 1994 bestseller “The Hot Zone,” about the origins of the Ebola virus. An aide reaches her bare hands inside the woman to deliver the stillborn baby, unaware that the virus has now invaded her body, too.Īnd this is just the beginning. Uganda locks down districts as ebola spreadsĪ pregnant woman, infected with Ebola, bleeds out on the table. Uganda declares itself Ebola-free after swiftly turning tide on outbreak But it’s lost between fevered descriptions designed, seemingly, to provoke the kind of hysteria about Ebola that might work well for the film thriller Preston seems to have in mind.CDC warns doctors to look out for Marburg virus after Africa outbreaksĭeadly Marburg virus outbreak: Here's what you need to know Crisis in the Red Zone also recounts an important story about the risks of emerging diseases and a global medical system ill equipped to handle them. What’s more, the book also falters on a deeper, structural level. But this examination comes too late, during the book’s final quarter, after Preston has spent chapters mired in caricature and overdramatization. Preston does try to wrestle with the unequal medical treatment received by Africans who contracted the disease versus treatment received by foreign white aid workers. But it’s Preston’s portrayal of the nonwhite characters that feels especially egregious.

Much like the clichés that are a regular feature of Hollywood films, the stereotypes that pile up in this book quickly become painful. However one feels generally about the dramatic tone that Preston favors, it feels especially inappropriate in this book. His new ems written with a singular intent: inspiring the movie version. Richard Preston has a penchant for the cinematic, even when his subject matter could not be more depressing and dire.

Crisis in the red zone by richard preston