The Hot Zone: a scary truthRichard Preston weaves a true story about the chilling story of an Ebola virus (a pathogen smaller than a bacterium, made up of a shell made of proteins and membranes and a nucleus containing DNA or RNA. virus depends on living cells to replicate.) outbreak occurring in a suburban Washington, DC laboratory in 1989. In this laboratory, monkeys are used in scientific experiments become ill rapidly and they die from a filovirus (a family of viruses that includes only Ebola and Marburg). From this introduction, Preston tells of an explosive chain of lethal transmissions (Biological fusion disease in which a lethal infectious agent spreads explosively through a population, killing a large percentage of the population.), starting far from this Washington laboratory , DC and allows the laboratory to become a hot zone (area containing lethal and infectious organisms). In graphic detail, Preston presents the melting body of a man, Charles Monet, being invaded by a filovirus in a part of the African rainforests that also presents the world with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, the cause of AIDS. It is an emerging level 2 agent from the rainforests of Africa. Its exact origin is unknown. Its final level of penetration into the human species is now completely unknown.) via the Kinshasa Highway (the AIDS Highway. The main route through which HIV passes). traveled during his escape from the rainforest of central Africa. The road connects Kinshasa, Zaire, with East Africa.). This becomes the first known index case (First known case in an infectious disease epidemic. Sometimes the disease spreads widely) and allows extreme amplification (multiplication of a virus everywhere in a host, partial transformation of the host into virus ) occurring as the virus spreads its billions of replicated copies, setting off a chain of lethal transmissions that could eventually threaten the entire population of the United States and the world if it escalated into a large-scale epidemic. The history of these filoviruses, Ebloa and Marburg (Closely related to Ebola. It was originally called elongated rabies.), viruses, are presented by Preston in great detail and capture the reader's interest by showing their ability to destroy the human race and the impact they have and will have on the world lives of the story's real-life characters, particularly those in the United States.