The Viral Storm
The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age
-
-
5,0 • 1 Bewertung
-
-
- 9,49 €
-
- 9,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'Wolfe has an important story to tell and as a virologist at the forefront of pandemic forecasting, he is the perfect person to tell it' Guardian
In The Viral Storm award-winning biologist Nathan Wolfe - known as 'the Indiana Jones of virus hunters' for his work in jungles and rain forests across the world - shows why we are so vulnerable to a global pandemic.
The Viral Storm examines how viruses like HIV, swine flu, and bird flu have almost wiped us out in the past - and may do so in the future. It explores why modern life makes us so at risk to global pandemics, and what new technologies can do to prevent them. Wolfe's provocative vision may leave you feeling distinctly uncomfortable - but it will reveal exactly what it is we are up against.
'An excellent piece of scientific gothic, rich in descriptions of the threat we face from emerging viruses' Nature
'Part autobiography, part warning ... enthralling' BBC Focus
'Quietly terrifying ... It's hard not to feel a bit feverish at times while reading' Boston Globe
'The plague-ridden future imagined by this authoritative, measured, yet gripping book is extremely alarming' Sunday Times
'Nathan Wolfe is saving the world from near-inevitable pandemic ... a kick-ass book' Mary Roach, author of Stiff
'The world's most prominent virus hunter' New Yorker
'A good place to start preparing for what might come' New Humanist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Why does the threat of pandemics seem to be growing, as with recent bird and swine flu outbreaks? With the doggedness of a medical detective, Stanford biologist Wolfe attempts in this engrossing and fast-paced chronicle of medical exploration and discovery to uncover how pandemics start, why we are now plagued by them, and what we can do to prevent them. Viruses, Wolfe points out, are ubiquitous and not all harmful; marine viruses, for example, help maintain environmental equilibrium by killing certain bacteria. Wolfe traces how human evolution has made us more vulnerable to dangerous viruses, arguing forcefully that the domestication of animals provided close contact with a small set of animals, allowing their microbes to cross over into humans and spread widely through increasingly settled and sedentary populations. He reiterates that preventing the spread of various microbes is as simple as practicing good hygiene, but he observes that such practices are impossible for much of the developing world. So he and his institute, the Global Viral Foundation, are now developing strategies such as monitoring the butchering of wild game (through which microbes could jump into humans) to better forecast and to prevent large viral outbreaks. 45 b&w illus.
