Author David Quammen has followed up his previous book (“Spillover”,
Oct. 23) with a supplement, “Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly
Virus”. It is published by Norton, with
ISBN 978-0-393-35155-2 for paperback, 119 pages, indexed, and is in 21 “sections”
with an Introduction and an Epilogue.
The book does repeat some material from “Spillover” but also
brings the history of the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa up to date as
of early September 2014. It does not
cover the cases that were treated in Texas (including the two nurses at Texas
Presbyterian) or New York City, since these occurred after the book went to
press. That’s a problem with non-fiction
book publishing.
Quammen would obviously discourage public health policies
that would discourage doctors and nurses from going to West Africa to help
treat Ebola patients. But perhaps a
21-day observation or quarantine period would be negotiated into an assignment,
and be paid for.
Quammen discusses the lurid hyperbolic discussions of the
clinical course of Ebola in his 1994 book “The Hot Zone”, which also describes
Ebola Reston (which affected chimps only).
No, people don’t really turn to slime alive and dissolve in their
beds. Many cases, even fatal ones, don’t
even involve bleeding. However, the
virus does so much damage to the blood supply of vital organs that multiple organ
failures often occur.
I bought “The Hot Zone” in the cafeteria at a one-day book
fair where I worked in 1994 (at USLICO Corporation, soon to become ReliaStar). After I brought it into the office and shared
it, others called me “Ebola Bill”, having no idea how prophetic the book would
become.
He also provides more details on how the virus may persist
in animal reservoirs, especially bats, which are much more numerous than we
realize, and whose immune systems are sufficiently different from ours that
they can host the virus without becoming ill from it. The virus seems adapted to these ancient
hosts, but not to humans.
Ebola has several subtypes, and another filiovirus, Marburg,
is closely related and causes very similar disease. Quammen says that the tick-born Crimean-Congo
Hemorrhagic fever (caused by a different family of virus) is even more gruesome
than Ebola or Marburg.
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