Crisis in the Red Zone

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A gripping account of the deadliest Ebola epidemic yet, an urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses, and a tribute to the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us—from the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone “Crisis in the Red Zone reads like a thriller. That the story it tells is all true makes it all more terrifying.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston chronicles the 2013–2014 Ebola outbreak, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire, and posed questions about the charged ethical dilemma over who should, and did, receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment with the power to save lives. Preston tells an unforgettable story that explains the eruption of new, lethal viruses into the human species—viruses that have the power to infect anyone, anywhere. Rich in characters and conflict—physical, emotional, and ethical—Crisis in the Red Zone is an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time, and a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come. Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013–2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined—in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before. The more we discover about the virosphere, the more we realize its deadly potential. Crisis in the Red Zone is an exquisitely timely book, a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come.