The Hot Zone_ Questions

Valery 1 Brandon Valery Mrs. Glynn 12 Aug. 2014 “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston 1. Are viruses living or non-living? a. Viruses are non-living. In order for an organism to be classified as living it must be able to grow, reproduce, adapt, contain cells, and evolve. Since viruses cannot reproduce on their own, they are non-living.

2. What are the viruses written about in “The Hot Zone”? How are they classified? a. “The Hot Zone” discusses: Marburg, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Reston, these four viruses are classified as biosafety level four hot agents. They are also classified within the family Filoviridae and are know as filoviruses due to the structure of their strains.

3. How are viruses named? Give some examples- What was the origin of the Marburg virus. a. Viruses are named after the location in which they were discovered. For example, the Marburg virus was discovered in Marburg, Germany. Another example of this includes Ebola-Zaire. The Zaire strain of Ebola, the deadliest strain, originated in the county of Zaire, Africa.

4. Why do viruses typically affect only one or a few species? a. Viruses work by attaching themselves to cell receptors on cell membranes that are created by the cells DNA. Viruses typically only affect one or a few species because of the large variety of gene sequences and cell makeups amongst different species. However, certain species are very closely related, making their gene sequences and cell make up similar, it is this rarity along with the way that

Valery 2 viruses work that makes them both venerable to the same virus. It is from one of these special cases that created the situation that occurred in The Hot Zone.

5. What are some ways that viruses can spread? a. The spread of viruses can occur in many different ways; however, all of these ways can be sorted into two different categories, direct and indirect contact. Direct contact with a virus is exactly what it sounds like, having a physical encountering with the virus itself. Examples of this include: coming in contact with blood or other bodily fluids, sharing dirty needles, and sexual intercourse. An indirect spread of a virus would be when the virus becomes airborne in air particles and the victim then breathes them in and becomes infected.

6. What does “jump to a different host species” mean and what is necessary for a virus to be able to do that? a. “Jump to a different host species” means that the virus infects a different species than it typically does. This terms describes exactly what happened in The Hot Zone when the ebola virus “jumped” from monkeys to humans. This transfer of the virus between species was able to occur because of the similar gene sequences that humans share with monkeys.

7. What are the three standard ways to “stop” a virus? a. The three standard ways to stop the Ebola virus given in The Hot Zone are to use bleach as a sanitizer, burning, and by simply avoiding contact.

8. The book describes outbreaks of viruses in Sudan and Zaire in Africa, Marburg in Germany, and Reston, Virginia in the U.S. What practices connect these places? a. There are a couple linking factors between the places in which Marburg or Ebola arose. In Marburg, Germany and Reston, Virginia monkeys became infected with the virus and the virus spread throughout the monkeys.

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9. Increased mobility and accessibility allows for the spread of viruses. What change may have facilitated the jump of the virus responsible for AIDS to humans near Lake Victoria? a. Humans are always moving and expanding their surface area. Tribes in Africa had moved to Lake Victoria and surrounding areas. While in their new environment they may have had encounters with monkeys and handled their blood or raw meat. Handling or coming in contact with the infected meat or blood of a monkey could have allowed for the virus to be transferred from monkeys to humans. Once spread to humans it then spreads through sexual contact.

10. A comment is made in the book that every major city in the world is only 24-hours away from exposure to an emerging virus. Reference is made to a network that links all of the cities of the world. What is the author referring to? a. The author is referring to the air traffic they humans have created within the modern world. In the book, Charles Monet gets onto a plane and traveled to Nairobi to seek medical attentions. During this travel Monet could have infected several people on the plane as well as in the hospital and caused the outbreak of his virus to reach further places.

12. Should blood samples be shipped around the world for study of infectious diseases? Why or why not? Site an example from the book that might have had the potential to be disastrous in terms of exposure to a hot agent. a. Yes, blood samples should be shipped internationally for studying purposes only. Diseases arise all over the world, by allowing other red ions to study the disease they can format precautions to make sure they are well prepared in the event of a future out break. Also people and technology varies all over the world, allowing other facilities and people to study infectious diseases, they might conclude different things that could be beneficial to other places as well. In The Hot Zone a late victim of Ebola-Zaire has small amounts of her blood shipped to the C.D.C. headquarters in Georgia. During the shipping the glass tube containing her blood shatter and and blood is spread all over the container. Then the scientist of when

Valery 4 to clean up the spill and handle her blood did not use the proper protective equipment, causing the situation to become potentially disastrous.

13. Researchers Peter Jahrling and Tom Geisbert whiffed the monkey tissue and chose not to disclose the information. What do you think about their action and their decision? a. I think that their action and their decision was completely inappropriate and very risky. When they whiffed the monkey tissue they could have exposed themselves to a very serious virus and at the time they had no knowledge of that they were truly dealing with and never should have taken the risk. Then the decision to keep the information private was even more foolish, if they had truly contracted the virus they would have put more lives in danger including their own.

14. For a situation such as that described in the book, should the public be notified of potential risks and dangers? At which point in the story should an announcement have been made? a. No, all alerting the public would have done is cause widespread panic. Keeping the information on a must know basis helped to make the situation easier to solve. If the public had now the situation would have been much harder to deal with and upset certain people. However, if a human did contract Ebola-Reston, then precautions should have been taken and the public would need to be alerted.

15. What are the justifications for importing primates to the United States for research? What are the possible risks and benefits? a. Importing primates to the U.S. for research can be beneficial because the drug testing and vaccines derived from experimentation can be used to affectively help humans and save numerous lives. There are also some risks associated with this type of importation, the monkeys can infect human caretakers or a disease could wipe out all of the moneys with in the facilities. However, primates are still imported into the U.S. because the pros of helping humans greatly outweighs the cons.

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16. Preston quotes Peter Jarhling saying “Why is the Ziare stuff hot for humans? Why isn’t Reston hot for humans, when the strains are so close to each other?” Propose some possible answers for these questions. a. Reston may not be hot for humans because of how viruses can only bond to certain cell receptors or it may only attack a certain cell that is found within monkey and not humans. Whereas Ziare is capable to attack humans cells due to the human gene sequence and cell make up.

17. The last chapter takes you and the author back to Kitum Cave. Would you enter Kitum Cave in a space suit? Without a space suit? a. If I were to enter Kitum Cave I would definitely be wearing a space suit. Any type of disease could be present with in the cave and wear a suit would help to greatly reduce the risk of catching a disease.

18. What is an emerging virus? a. An emerging virus is a newly discovered virus, one that is increasing in human incidences and may have been dormant for centuries or is just jumping to the human species.

19. How are emerging viruses such as Ebola a threat to human safety? a. Emerging viruses such as Ebola are a threat to human safety due to the lake of knowledge and understanding that we have of them. Since we are not knowledgable of the virus there is little that can be done to treat or prevent the virus until further testing occurs.