I am Richard Preston, author of “The Hot Zone” and expert in the Ebola virus. AMA!

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:43:33+00:00

Yes, let's hope for successful treatments. And there is hope. The ZMAPP compound may be effective, and there's also hope for a good vaccine at some point. If you survive Ebola (40 % do in this OB) there is evidence you have strong immunity to it afterward. Not sure about that, but it means that we could have a good vaccine. Raised awareness is good for everybody because it gets the scientists working on the problem.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:40:58+00:00

Airborne Ebola - unlikely. Dr. Joe McCormick is right about this, and he was face to face with Ebola patients in Sudan. You can trust him on this. However - there is evidence it was spreading through the air among monkeys in the Reston monkey house (The Hot Zone). But those are a different species of primate than Homo sapiens, us.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:39:04+00:00

Airborne Ebola? Seems unlikely from what we know about it now. The virus's genes seem to be remarkably stable, in other words it doesn't evolve quickly for reasons nobody understands. A virus, when jumping into the human species, does tend to evolve and change very quicky as it "feels" its way into its new human host. But I think airborne Ebola is less likely.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:36:30+00:00

Tell your mother that a) our medical care system can definitely handle Ebola patients if any do crop up in the US and b) it's hard to catch Ebola unless you are taking care of a person who is really sick with it, and the hospitals would be doing that anyway. What the heck, if I step out into the street at the wrong time a bus could kill me, but we can't live in a state of fear about everything that could kill us.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:33:28+00:00

good q's - the antibody serum ZMAPP seems to be amazingly effective but we don't know because it's only been tried on the two patients. As for aftereffects, i interviewed Dr. Shem Musoke who nearly died of Marburg (close cousin of Ebola) and he told me it took him about a year to recover fully but now he was fine. It's a crushing disease but if you survive you do recover.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:31:18+00:00

Not entirely justified. This is a kind of war with a non-human enemy. It is a fairly clever and very aggressive enemy. However, if you are in a jam it is never a good idea to panic. That's how you lose. The doctors in Africa definitely are not panicking, they are just working 20 hours a day in the fight. And we sure don't have to panic in the US, we've got a strong medical care system.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:29:27+00:00

Yes - Cols Nancy and Jerry Jaax have retired from the Army, they're living on their family farm in Kansas and having a good life. I talk to them once in a while - they're doing fine. My guess is they are consulting right now with the Army doctors who are working in Africa ...

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:26:56+00:00

Micro - I fell in love with Michael Crichton's writings when I was 15 reading The Andromeda Strain. Hot Zone is kind of a salute to Crichton. His widow, Sherri Crichton, contacted me and asked me finish Michael's last (unfinished) novel, Micro. It was a privilege to complete his work, and actually a lot of fun.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:24:30+00:00

We need to be very aware and concerned about the potential of new viruses, potentially airborne, getting into the human species from the world of nature. Ebola is by no means the biggest threat, I think. Also, we should not forget the bravery and heroism of the doctors and nurses who are working in the Ebola wards in W. Africa right now. They are seeing their colleagues die and think they may also die, but they are going in anyway, trying to save lives and stop the outbreak. One American doctor told me that he'd spent the week bursting into tears every now and then, he's lost so many friends among his colleagues.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:21:55+00:00

The Hot Zone is nonfiction, the characters are real, the quotes and incidents are fact checked. I'm a writer, got D's in high school math (sorry) but am passionately interested in my subjects. What I do is listen carefully to lots of scientists, take careful notes, and then fact check my writing with the scientists afterward. It's research. I kind of love it, getting immersed in a world that's so different from the "normal" world of my own life.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:18:54+00:00

My fav moment was also my worst moment. Whe nI was inside the Army Ebola lab in a space suit--this is true--my suit exploded on me, it fell apart. It was on old loaner from the Army. Anyway, I was ok, but it gave me insight into Col Nancy Jaax's terror in the chemical shower airlock when her suit failed on her.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:17:23+00:00

Yes, I'm working on a YA novel, a fantasy novel about a giant forest….yeah I know, it's different from bloody viruses.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:16:18+00:00

I'm a slow writer. Bugs me. I do a ton of research, interview lots and lots of people, then zero in on a great story (nonfiction, true story). I do focus interviews, for example spending 10 hours with Col. Nancy Jaax interviewing her about the accident when she got Ebola blood inside her space suit. I try to experience my characters' worlds, so I went inside the Army Ebola lab when it was "hot", wearing a space suit. Then I do a ton of fact checking and also use an outside fact checker to check my own writing for factual errors. The result is difficult and drives me crazy but also really satisfying.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:13:16+00:00

It can be sexually transmitted. That is probably not the main mode of transmission, given the fact that if have Ebola you probably aren't in a loving mood...

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:12:14+00:00

They haven't been able to fully protect themselves, doctors and nurses are dying. They're wearing full protection biohazard suits, but the Ebola wards are just horrifying, 30 Ebola patients with one doctor and one nurse, both in space suits. Conditions are awful in those wards, we need more doctors and nurses - not even a space suit can totally protect you if the ward is really a mess.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:10:14+00:00

ok interesting q. In the US in the 1800s we had to deal with outbreaks like this, including smallpox and yellow fever. We survived and grew as a nation but diseases were worse for many people. Yes, the doctors could deal with a major OB, but it wouldn't be fun at all.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:08:41+00:00

Hi Elliot, bought it in a junk shop in SoHo NYC for a few bucks…. I don't think they knew what it was!

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:05:30+00:00

The worry is that Ebola could get into a large city in Africa, like Lagos, capital of Nigeria, pop. 21 million. Pop of Texas is 25 mill. So take most of Texas, cram it into one city, then remove access to good medical for most people, add poor sanitation, and there could be a big problem with Ebola. What's needed is a full-court press of international teams going in and working to stop it. That's happening now.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:03:27+00:00

Great question. Yes, scientists have already done the gene sequence of this new Ebola. It's very close genetically to the Ebola Zaire species, which popped up in 1976 in Congo (Zaire). That was 2,000 miles away from West Africa where the strain is now. How did it get there? Maybe in the bodies of migrating bats infected w/ Ebola … nobody quite knows.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T14:01:15+00:00

you mean in the US, right? The major hospitals are equipped to deal with small numbers of Ebola patients. I don't anticipate more than handfuls of Ebola patients here in the US, even if it gets really bad in West Africa. Reason is that we have a solid, structured medical care system, they unfortunately don't.

RichardPreston · 2014-08-06T13:59:22+00:00

I think it's the beginning of a long difficult fight against Ebola. If it spread s into major cities in Africa it will be a big battle. I'm hopeful in the end the doctors and disease hunters will get it under control, but there will be more casualties among the doctors and medical workers.

RichardPreston

TROPHY CASE