The Hot Zone Essay

The Global South: Who Really Cares?

A global disease is one that does not care about borders, doesnt care if a country is developed or developing, if a country is in the global north or in the global south, all it cares about is infecting as many people as possible. A global disease is one that travels throughout the entire world, infecting and destroying as much as possible. In his book The Hot Zone, Richard Prestons describes the spread of a global disease of a filovirus known as Ebola. Throughout the book, the spread of this thread virus (another name for filovirus) is traced back to the exploration by a French expatriate named Charles Monet. Preston reflects on Monets exposure to Ebola back to the Kitum Cave in Kenya which ultimately spreads globally through a not heavily regulated monkey trading ring to its appearance in Reston, Virginia, where it became a worldwide epidemic . Ebola enters the body through an exchange of bodily fluids similar to AIDs but the aftermath is nothing in comparison. Preston identifies four filoviruses strainsMarburg, Ebolua Sudan, Ebola Zaire and Ebola Restonall of which have different mortality rates but the same effects on the body . Marburg is the least fatal with a fatality rate of twenty-five percent, Ebola Zaire is the most fatal with a ninety-percent kill rate. Preston recalls on numerous horrifying accounts of Ebola and the effects on the human body. Ebola symptoms develop anywhere from three to eighteen days starting with a headache rapidly developing into blood clots of all major organs including the brainrendering the specimen depersonalized and derangedkilling these organs within day. This leads to a bleed out in which all orifices of the body excrete blood and fesses . The person/animal is dead within a week of the initial symptoms. The accounts of the filovirus were first noticed in 1967 in Germany where the virus experienced amplification jumping from monkeys to humans where 31 people were infected and seven bled out . The next known outbreak was Charles Monets in 1980. The Ebolas ability to amplify and spread rapidly throughout the body, cutting off blood supply and liquefying most vital organs, has caused it to become one of the most fatal viruses known to man kind. If Ebola were to spread globally the affect would be catastrophic, destroying much of the human race.

Preston tracks this horrifying disease throughout Africa to Europe and into America showing Ebolas potential to spread globally. As he tracks this virus into America he shows the contrast in procedures and priority by the U.S. in the outbreaks within the global south and global north. He goes on to show that the emergence of a disease geographically will dictate its significance and how the containment of the disease is dealt with.

The effects of Ebola can only be compared to that of the Black Plague which destroyed populations throughout the 1300s and lingering until 1700s . In recent centuries diseases such as Ebola, malaria, yellow fever, and cholera have surfaced out of mainly tropical regions spreading globally to more developed northern countriesnamely America and Europe . The effects of these diseases devastated the lower classes as they were unable to afford medical treatment. Mark Harrison states, cholera was widely seen as a conspiracy by one class against another , it was a way to keep the lower classes in a subordinate state. As new diseases were discovered, none compared to the devastating effects of Ebola. Preston states, yellow fever, which is considered a highly lethal virus kills only about one in twenty patients once they reach a hospital , nothing in comparison to ninety-percent fatality rate of Ebola. These 19th century diseases might have came out of tropical regions but did not stay there. These diseases traveled throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and into the Americas. As these diseases emerged in the global south not much of an effort to contain them was done. Cholera and yellow fever had been devastating West Asia for sometime with no intervention from the global north but as soon it started to make a move to America, America changed its policy to help stop their spread . As these diseases traveled to the global north or global norths colonies, the governments effected quickly got involved. As malaria and influenza destroyed these colonies governments commissioned scientists to quarantine and find cures for these diseases. Soon malaria and influenza could readily be understood and prevented using modern scientific techniques . These diseases effects on the global north were nothing in comparison to the devastation it caused in the global south as they were medically unequipped to deal with them. Even though the global north had the supplies and technology they did little to nothing to treat and cure the infected in the south. These diseases grew to be considered problems of the less modernized global south due to their uncleanly and uncivilized practices.

As diseases spread from the global south to the global north they become increasingly more important to the world as they began to affect the modernized countries. Ebola at its origin had little humanitarian intervention by the international community. The World Health Organization sent a team of about ten to combat the very contagious outbreak in Bumba, Africa . A small group of scientists and doctors can not contain and eradicate a virus of this magnitude; it would take medical personnel of hundreds. Such insignificant efforts were made due to the fact that this outbreak was contained in the sense that the infected and potential infected were unable to leave Africa due to their level of poverty. The team was sent to Bumba merely to obtain samples and try to combat the disease based on the fact that Ebola has the potential to be a virus with the infectiousness of influenza and the mortality rate of the black plague . As the global north realized Ebolas global potential to spread, it made attempts (Bumba) at trying to prevent its transmission throughout the industrialized world. As Ebola maintains confined in the global south, the global norths population will not know of its existence.

Recently an epidemic called Swine Flu or H1N1 virus has devastated the town of La Gloria in Mexico. Throughout Mexico there have been over 2,500 cases and over 10,000 worldwide. When the disease was confined in Mexico at its origin (the global south) no media bothered to broadcast on the subject. As soon as a few cases had been discovered in America it became a worldwide epidemic. It wasnt until the disease reached America that the World Health Organization considered to raise its pandemic flu alert level . A diseases movement northward signifies it as a world threat, but until it finds its way into the global north it seems as if no one cares.

As the only super power still left in the world, it is up to the United States to take a stand against all diseases, foreign and domestic. It is an injustice to the world for the United States or any country capable of intervening in such epidemics to sit idly by and watch as a civilization is deteriorated. In my personal opinion it is disgusting that the United States and the World Health Organization did not take quick and effective action against a disease that makes AIDS look like childs play . For a country to not fear or try to prevent a disease until it becomes a domestic threat is ignorant. Through travel, trade and politics the world has increasingly become more and more globalized, it is easy to assume that what is in Africa one day could easily be in America the next. The case of Charles Monet should be a testament to the possibilities that a virus, not just Ebola could end up in our back yard. AIDS has swept through our civilization, killing hundreds of millions, Preston states, What would have happened if someone had noticed AIDS when it first began to spread?...we might have been able to stop it, or at least slow it down;we might have been able to save at least a hundred million lives . The world together as a whole needs to unite and try to prevent the destruction by infectious viruses before it is to late and nothing can be done.