The Hot Zone: Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

In September 1987, Gene Johnson receives a mysterious package from Kenya containing blood from a 10-year-old Danish boy named Peter Cardinal. As Johnson drives to USAMRIID, he doubts there will be anything interesting in the boy’s blood, but decides to analyze it anyway, despite the fact that it will take him much of the night to do so. He proceeds to the Ebola suite, places the serum in an airtight container, and puts on gloves in order to begin his work.

Preston gives us background on the Cardinal family, which had recently taken a vacation in Kenya. During the trip, Peter fell ill (the first symptom was red eyes), and the doctors diagnosed him with malaria. His mother, however, was unconvinced, and demanded that he be evacuated to Nairobi hospital, where Dr. David Silverstein cared for him.

Preston meets David Silverstein in a coffee shop to learn more about Peter Cardinal. Silverstein describes an alert, fit 10-year-old, who appeared to have pneumonia. Soon afterward he began to turn blue, and his skin became spotted with red dots. Dr. Silverstein began to worry that the child had Marburg, and ordered his team to take precautions. Soon after, the boy was put on a respirator. Next his skin began to bruise and his pupils to dilate, indicating that his brain was bleeding. His skin began to puff up, meaning that there was bleeding underneath it as well. Cardinal died shortly afterwards, having bled out internally.

Preston compares hot viruses to predators, describing the moment when a lion attacks a zebra on the savanna. He comments upon the “immense antiquity” of these kinds of lethal viruses, and reminds us that they are far older than we humans are.

Peter Cardinal’s parents and sister watched as he lay in agony. Eventually his brain activity flatlined, and Dr. David Silverstein advised them to turn off the respirator that was keeping their son alive, telling them that there was nothing anyone could have done to save him.

Back in USAMRIID, Gene Johnson puts Peter Cardinal’s blood into a vial full of monkey cells in order to observe its effect on them. In the days afterwards, Johnson watches as the monkey cells burst and die. Next he uses the fluid to infect three monkeys, and two die quickly. After they succumb, Johnson infects guinea pigs, which also die soon after. Its extreme lethalness towards humans, monkeys, and guinea pigs means that it can jump across species to infect them. Johnson becomes obsessed with finding out where Peter became infected, and phones a friend named Dr. Peter Tukei, a scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, who offers to locate and interview Peter’s parents. A week later, he has news: the family had traveled to Kitum Cave. New questions spring up in Johnson’s mind: if Charles Monet and Peter Cardinal both traveled to Kitum Cave before their deaths, then clearly the virus lurks somewhere within the cave.