Who is impacted by the disease?

An individual sufferer of the disease, such as Monet?

In the first chapter of The Hot Zone, the reader is introduced to Charles Monet, an expatriate Frenchman who lives at the base of Mount Elgon in western Kenya in 1979. An amateur naturalist, Monet decides to use his winter holiday for a camping trip to the national park on Mount Elgon. Monet invites one of his lovers from the village to go with him. On the second day of the trip, Monet and his friend explore Kitum Cave, a local tourist attraction and petrified rain forest that contains an array of crystals, as well as bats, insects, and mummified elephant corpses.

Seven days after the trip to Kitum Cave, Monet develops a severe headache. He decides to stay home from work, but the headache only becomes more intense and is soon joined by a backache. Three days after his headache begins, Monet spikes a fever and begins to vomit uncontrollably. His personality changes – he becomes sullen and resentful to his housekeeper – while his face becomes frozen in a mask-like state. When his eyeballs turn red and his skin takes on a yellowish shade, Monet’s housekeeper fears that he is turning into a zombie.

Several of Monet’s colleagues visit to see if he has recovered enough to return to work. When they see the state of his illness, his co-workers immediately drive him to a private hospital in Kisumu. However, the doctors at Kisumu are unable to diagnose the cause of Monet’s illness and recommend treatment at Nairobi Hospital, a short plane ride away. During the flight to Nairobi, Monet becomes increasingly sick and begins to vomit up blood. When the plane lands, Monet manages to take a taxi to the Nairobi Hospital before collapsing and bleeding out in the waiting room.

Dr. Shem Musoke of Nairobi Hospital is the first to arrive on the scene. After feeling for a pulse, his first step is to clear blood and debris from Monet’s mouth in order to insert a laryngoscope. With Dr. Musoke leaning just a few inches from Monet’s mouth, Monet suddenly vomits, spewing blood all over Dr. Musoke’s face and upper body. Monet then slips into a coma and dies in the early hours of the next morning. Despite an autopsy, the hospital staff is unable to identify the cause of his death.