Showing titles in Contagious Diseases

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A gripping account of the deadliest Ebola epidemic yet, an urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses, and a tribute to the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us—from the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone “Crisis in the Red Zone reads...

From the masters of storytelling-meets-science and co-authors of Quackery, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks—how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us. Written in the...

Brought to you by Penguin. A Financial Times Best Book of the Year The most timely and informative history book you will read this year, tracing a century of pandemics. Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious...

Brought to you by Penguin. With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely...

At every moment, within your body and all around you, trillions of microscopic combatants are fighting an invisible war. Countless times per second, 'good' viruses known as phages are infecting and destroying bacteria. These phages are the most abundant life form on the planet and have an incredible power to heal rather than harm. So why have most of us never even heard of them? The Good Virus reveals how personalities, power and politics have repeatedly crashed together to hinder our understanding of these weird and wonderful life forms.

Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues all around us, in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality.

Despite advances in health care, infectious microbes continue to be a formidable adversary to scientists and doctors. Vaccines and antibiotics, the mainstays of modern medicine, have not been able to conquer infectious microbes because of their amazing ability to adapt, evolve, and spread to new places. Terrorism aside, one of the greatest dangers from infectious disease we face today is from a massive outbreak of drug-resistant microbes.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In 1918, the world faced the deadliest pandemic in human history. What can the story of the so-called Spanish Flu teach us about the fight against present day crises, and how to prepare for future outbreaks? At the height of WWI...

In The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research, celebrated medievalist Dorsey Armstrong shares the fascinating new story of this old pandemic—revealed by dedicated researchers working with 21st-century technologies and a knowledge of language and history that now provide input from all geographic areas of the medieval world. In seven engaging lectures, Professor Armstrong corrects explanations of the pandemic that are now known to be inaccurate and offers a more robust description of plague biology than has ever been known.

Understanding how Covid-19 started is more important than we know for the future of humankind. Determining whether the virus came from nature or from a lab will help us to safeguard against the next pandemic. This disease will forever punctuate modern history. It has led to the deaths of...

From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history. JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten...

*The inside story of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, from two of the leading scientists who created it. Fully updated for paperback publication with a preface and a new chapter .* This is the story of a race - not against other vaccines or other scientists, but against a deadly and devastating...

The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.  

Many sufferers drag themselves from one doctor or alternative practitioner to the next, getting lost in a maze of lab tests, prescription drugs, and treatments. Thousands of dollars and months (or years) later, they realize they are no better off than where they started. Unlocking Lyme puts an end to this desperate quest. Written by Dr. Bill Rawls, a physician who overcame Lyme disease himself, this book is a comprehensive, practical resource full of solutions that work.

In December 2013, a young boy in a tiny West African village contracted the deadly Ebola virus. The virus spread to his relatives, then to neighboring communities, then across international borders. The world's first urban Ebola outbreak quickly overwhelmed the global health system and threatened to kill millions. In an increasingly interconnected world in which everyone is one or two flights away from New York or London or Beijing, even a localized epidemic can become a pandemic. Ebola's spread sounded global alarms that the next killer outbreak is right around the corner.

A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic...

A magnificently reported and soulfully crafted exploration of the human immune system–the key to health and wellness, life and death. An epic, first-of-its-kind book, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning...

As bad as Covid-19 was, the next pandemic could be worse—but we have the tools to prepare, as revealed in this urgent, gripping warning by the New York Times bestselling authors of Deadliest Enemy. The Covid-19 pandemic was the most devastating natural event of the last century, killing more...

Go behind the scenes on the Covid wards of one of Britain's busiest hospitals, Bradford Royal Infirmary. 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of coronavirus, but it's easy to forget the shock, fear and confusion that pervaded Britain as the pandemic first hit. In this exceptional radio series, senior NHS doctor and epidemiologist Professor John Wright takes us back to those crucial early days, giving us a first-hand account of one hospital's fight against COVID-19 and providing an invaluable oral history of this unique historical moment. 

With over 30 years of experience as a nurse, Anthea thought she had seen it all. But with Covid came the greatest trial, personally and professionally, of her life. Thrust into hourly challenges–many a matter of life and death–while on the Critical Care units of St George’s in south London, Anthea processed her shocking experiences through writing. It started with an email to request biscuits. But her appeal to help boost the morale of her fellow nurses soon turned into a series of astonishingly moving stories detailing the realities of being a front line worker.