The Virus Hunters: Dispatches from the Frontline

by Joseph B. McCormick; Susan Fisher-Hoch

Ebola, Lassa fever, HIV/AIDS, anthrax, leprosy, meningitis - Drs Joseph McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch have confronted, studied, probed and fought them all, case by case and on an epidemic scale. This is their story of a quarter-of-a-century on the front lines of the struggle to hold the narrow line separating humankind from what might well be the true inheritors of the Earth: viruses. This book combines accounts of cutting-edge medical research with dramatic stories of survival in some of the most remote places on Earth, where the climate, the terrain and the politics can kill just as surely as any disease.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

Reviews

[Dave Appleby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ebola. Lassa Fever. AIDS. These are viral diseases responsible for horrible deaths. The authors have worked in Africa and Asia on the front-line of the war against these terrible diseases. The book, written in 1996, is not up to date with the latest treatments, or the more recent outbreaks, but it provides a compelling and highly readable account of how doctors, virologists and epidemiologists work in sometimes primitive conditions in scarcely-functioning underdeveloped countries to understand the methods of transmission of these diseases and to find ways of curing or, if possible, preventing them. The tenacity, skill and raw courage of these people is remarkable and the story that they tell is fascinating. And there are some great observations and sometimes some very funny moments.

An incredible book

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Showroom read. It is fair to say that anything scientific becomes 'yesterday' very quickly and this was outdated. If you look at it as a history of discovery then it was an interesting read. The scariest thing to remember is that as fast as headway is achieved, these fevers realign themselves to become unaffected by the new medicines used to combat them.

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A member of the genus Arenavirus, Junin virus characteristically causes Argentine hemorrhagic fever (AHF). AHF leads to major alterations within the vascular, neurological and immune systems and has a mortality rate of between 20 and 30%

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Yambuku is a small village in Mongala Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (previously Zaire) and was the site of the first known outbreak of the Ebola Zaire strain of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus in 1976.(source- wiki)

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Krio is a charming but rather strange tongue, which borrows heavily from French and Portuguese, as well as from several other African Languages and local dialects. The result is a pungent linguistic stew characterised by several delightful expressions such as "how de go-de-go?" meaning, more or less, "how are you doing?".

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Level 4 viruses produce lethal illness in humans and, for the most part, do not respond to treatment.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm slightly torn about this book. On the one had it was a very interesting subject, educational, informative, eye-opening and well written too (though the latter chapters seemed to have lost a bit of the pace of the first few). Alas it wasn't as involving or compelling a book as maybe I'd hoped for - it was good to read on the train too and from work, but the fact I chose not to spend spare time in the evenings reading it is perhaps indicative of my desire to 'enjoy' reading something else. I there there might have been a small twinge of selfish regret - considering a decade previously I was an optimistic new graduate in the field and was full of potential (and entertained desires of becoming a tropical disease microbiologist myself) but was now in an office in the Midlands writing audits and reports.. not in some jungle saving lives :-)