http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/books/the-hot-zone-author-tracks-ebolas-evolution.html?_r=0
A WORD WITH: RICHARD PRESTON
Updating a Chronicle of Suffering: Author of The Hot Zone Tracks Ebolas Evolution
By ALEXANDRA ALTEROCT. 19, 2014
<<Q. It has been more than two decades since you started writing about Ebola. How has your understanding of the virus evolved?
A. Its changed a great deal. We know a lot more about Ebola in the intervening 20 years.
Initially, there were a lot of fears that Ebola could mutate to become the airborne Andromeda strain that would wipe us all out. With what we know now about the genetic code of the virus, Ebola does not travel through the air in airborne form and is very unlikely to mutate that way. Another thing thats been learned about Ebola is the mutation rate. The virus is continually mutating as its moving through the human population. Its testing out its new environment. One of the biggest concerns is that all of our drugs and tests and vaccines for Ebola need to be adjusted. We can adjust the tests, but we need to watch how the virus is doing. We have a whole bunch of new tools that we never had in the 1990s. We now have the ability to use genetic sequencing machines to read the code of the virus again and again. This is like making a video of the virus moving in real time. We now have our eyes on the enemy.
Q. Some of your descriptions of the virus and its symptoms in The Hot Zone have been called inaccurate and hyperbolic. Are you planning to release an updated version of The Hot Zone with information related to the current crisis?
A. Yes, I am dying to update the book. I want to make the clinical picture of the virus more clear and accurate. In the original Hot Zone, I have a description of a nurse weeping tears of blood. That almost certainly didnt happen. When a person has Ebola, the eyes can turn brilliant red from blood vessels leaking and blood oozing out of the eyelid. Thats horrifying, but its not someone with tears of blood running down their face. I want to fix that
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