The Hot Zone

describe the information provided by "Mr.Jones" concerning the Marburg virus

chapter 3

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"I believe Mr Jones was questioned as to the health of the monkeys prior to their being shipped from London to Germany (where the virus broke out). His answer was, "All that animals got, before they were shipped off, was a visual inspection."

"By whom?" I asked.

"By me," he said. "I inspected them to see that they appeared normal. On occasion, with some of these shipments, one or two animals were injured or had skin leisons." His method was to pick out the sick-looking ones, which were removed from the shipment and presumably killed before the remaining healthy-looking animals were loaded onto the plane. When, a few weeks later, the monkeys started the outbreak inGermany, Mr. Jones felt terrible. "I was appalled, because I had signed the export certificate," he said to me. "I feel now that I have the deaths of these people on my hands. But that feeling suggests I could have done something about it. There was no way I could have known." He is right about that: the virus was then unknown to science, and as few as two or three not-visibly-sick animals could have started the outbreak.

One concludes that the man should not be blamed for anything."

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The Hot Zone