C. J. Peters has been on the front lines of our biological battle
against "hot" viruses around the world for three decades. In the course
of that career he has learned countless lessons about our interspecies
turf wars with infectious agents: the terrifying symptoms and sometimes
fatal diseases different virus families and strains cause, the
importance of finding out how a virus is spread, as well as identifying
the virus reservoir - the species of insect or animal where the virus
hides. Called in to contain an outbreak of deadly hemorrhagic fever in
Bolivia, he confronts the despair of trying to save a colleague who
accidentally infects himself with an errant scalpel. Working in Level 4
labs on the Machupo and Ebola viruses, he shows time and again why
expensive high-tech biohazard containment equipment is only as safe as
the people who use it. From Central and South Africa to a deadly
outbreak of a mystery virus in the American Southwest, from fieldwork in
Egypt and the mountains of Kenya to immobilizing an army unit to stop a
gut-wrenching outbreak of Ebola only miles from Washington, D.C., Virus
Hunter takes us backstage in the inevitable clash between biology and
human lives. Nor, Peters warns, despite the explosion of recent news on
viruses, is the danger over. Because of new, emerging viruses, and the
return of old, "vanquished" ones for which vaccines do not exist, there
remains a very real danger of a new epidemic that could, without proper
surveillance and early intervention, spread worldwide virtually
overnight. And the possibility of foreign countries of terrorist groups
using deadly airborne viruses that are easily obtained rather than
unwieldy explosives looms larger thanever in the future.
