Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013, to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies. With little help from the international community and a population ravaged by disease and fear, the war-torn African nation was simply unprepared to deal with the catastrophe. A physician's memoir about the ravages of a terrible disease and the small hospital that fought to contain it, Inferno is also an explanation of the science and biology of Ebola: how it is transmitted and spreads with such ferocity. And as Dr. Hatch notes, while Ebola is temporarily under control, it will inevitably re-emerge-as will other plagues, notably the Zika virus, which the World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency.
Record details
ISBN:9781250085139
ISBN:1250085136
Physical Description:print viii, 303 pages ; 25 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-294) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
The vestibule -- Preparing for the end of the world -- The blue world -- Inferno -- The unbearable cry -- Behold, a pale horse -- Night -- Purgatory -- Mawah.
Book
