The Hot Zone

This article is about the book. For the TV series, see The Hot Zone (American TV series). For other uses, see Hot zone (disambiguation).

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
AuthorRichard Preston
LanguageEnglish
SubjectsVirology, Ebola Virus, Medical, Epidemiology
GenreNonfiction
Publisher1st Anchor Books Edition
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date
September 20, 1994
Publication placeSouth Africa, United States
Media typePrint (paperback and hardback) eBook and audiobook
Pages368
ISBN0-385-47956-5
OCLC32052009
614.5/7 20
LC ClassRC140.5 .P74 1994
Websitehttps://richard-preston.net/book/the-hot-zone/

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story is a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses.[1][2] The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone".[3]

The filoviruses—including Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Marburg virus, and Ravn virus—are Biosafety Level 4 agents, extremely dangerous to humans because they are very infectious, have a high fatality rate, and most have no known prophylactic measures, treatments, or cures. Along with describing the history of the devastation caused by two of these Central African diseases, Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease, Preston described a 1989 incident in which a relative of Ebola virus, Reston virus, was discovered at a primate quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia, less than 15 miles (24 km) away from Washington, D.C.

  1. ^ "Best Sellers". The New York Times Book Review. June 4, 1995. Retrieved September 29, 2008.
  2. ^ Preston, Richard (1994). The hot zone. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780679430940. OCLC 30111747.
  3. ^ Preston, Richard (October 26, 1992). "Crisis in the Hot Zone". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 31, 2014.