Book dossier

Virus hunter

by Peters, C. J., C. J. Peters

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 than ever in the future.