outbreak movie assignment

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THE SPREAD OF VIRAL INFECTIONS

Subject: Health; Science/Biology;

Ages: 14+: High School;

Length: 33 minutes in five film clips or 53 minutes in one clip.

These film clips are designed to supplement existing lessons on the spread of viral infectious disease.

Learner Outcomes/Objectives Rationale Description of the Snippet Helpful Background

Using the Snippet in Class:

Preparation Step by Step

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

Students will have a clear picture of the path that a virus could take from a host animal to its first human victims and from there to an epidemic that could destroy an entire community.

The film clips provide an excellent supplement to a unit on the spread of infectious disease.

DESCRIPTION OF SNIPPET

A deadly virus is transmitted from Africa to the United States and threatens to cause an epidemic. The clips are taken from the first hour of the movie showing how the disease spreads.

HELPFUL BACKGROUND

THREATS TO HUMAN HEALTH PRESENTED BY VIRUSES

When it was discovered that bacteria could cause disease, there were many illnesses for which bacterial agents could not be found. These included serious diseases such as smallpox, polio, rabies, and influenza, as well as less serious maladies such as the common cold. These diseases and many more are caused by viruses.

Viruses are infectious agents which are between 20 and 100 times smaller than bacteria. They are too small to be seen through a normal microscope and can be visualized only through an electron microscope. Viruses consist of strands of genetic material (RNA or DNA) surrounded by a coating of protein (called a capsid). Viruses are not considered to be living organisms because they cannot reproduce outside of a living cell.

A virus binds to a cell when a part of the outer viral structure docks with a specific molecule on the cell surface. It then crosses the cell wall through a variety of methods (for example, injecting its genetic material through the cell wall or incorporating its capsid into the cell wall).

Viruses multiply by inserting their genetic information into a cell and harnessing the cell machinery to replicate the viral genetic material and make new capsids. The new viruses are then transmitted to other cells, either through the cell wall or when the cells burst and die. Viruses are parasites on a cellular level.

New strains of disease-causing viruses are a constant threat because viruses mutate easily. For example, each year a new influenza virus causes illness in millions of people. As a result, and because most drugs cannot disable a virus without harming healthy tissue, it is difficult to develop drug therapies to cure viral infections.

Viruses can be transmitted from one animal species to another. They affect each species differently and one species can harbor viruses deadly to another without any ill effect. For example, most Ebola viruses and the Hantavirus, do not cause disease in their host animals, but they are deadly to man. The Ebola-Reston virus, on the other hand, is deadly to monkeys but does not cause illness in humans.

Viral illnesses can be spread in a number of ways. Some, such as AIDS and Ebola, can only be spread through exchanges of blood or other bodily fluids. Others, such as influenza and the common cold, are airborne and enter through the respiratory tract. The Hantavirus is spread by breathing dried rodent feces which become airborne.

The Ebola virus is in the shape of a long rod, usually 800 to 1000 nanometers long. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.) The virus consists of a coiled strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA) contained in an envelope derived from the host cell membrane. The envelope is covered with spikes that are used by the virus to gain entry to new host cells. There are several strains of Ebola virus of varying degrees of mortality. The most fatal is Ebola/Zaire which kills 88% of those infected. The virus is called “Ebola” because it was first discovered near the Ebola river in Zaire.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is characterized by a severe headache, weakness and muscle aches, followed by abdominal pain, diarrhea, inflammation of the throat, eyes and mucous membranes, bleeding from body openings and destruction of internal organs. The incubation period is usually 5 to 10 days. The course of the disease is usually 7 to 10 days if it proves fatal. Between 12% and 50% of the victims will survive, depending on the strain of the virus. There is no known cure. In Zaire in 1995, blood from patients who were recovering was transfused into severely ill patients in an attempt to transfer antibodies to neutralize the virus. This technique met with some success, but clinical trials have yet to be conducted. Conventional treatment consists of preventing shock and providing supportive care. Care must be taken to prevent the spread of the illness to health care workers. Convalescence takes five weeks or more.

The first identified outbreaks of Ebola occurred in 1976, one in Zaire and one in Sudan. There were about 550 cases and 430 deaths. Another outbreak occurred in the city of Kitwit, Zaire in 1995 affecting 315 people and killing 242. There have been isolated cases of Ebola in various places in Africa. Ebola spreads when a person becomes infected from an animal reservoir host and then spreads the disease to other humans. The host and natural transmission cycle for the Ebola virus remain unknown.

There are historical precedents for many of the events described in the film. For example, neither smallpox nor the common cold existed in the Americas before the Europeans came. The indigenous population had not developed any genetic resistance to these viruses. Europeans brought these diseases with them, unintentionally causing pandemics which destroyed more than 3/4 of the population of some Native American tribes. It is believed by historians that the reason that the Spanish explorer Cortez, with only three hundred men, could conquer the massive and powerful Aztec empire was the spread of smallpox.

In 1989, a deadly virus from Africa, the Lassa virus, was brought to the U.S. by a man who had traveled to Africa to attend the funerals of his parents, both of whom died from an illness thought to be caused by the Lassa virus. After the man flew home, he became ill, going to a suburban Chicago clinic complaining of fever and a sore throat. The doctors gave him antibiotics and sent him home where he died of Lassa fever. Fortunately, no one else became infected, partially because of improved sanitation precautions at the clinic imposed to restrict the spread of AIDS. There was also an outbreak of a strain of Ebola virus that was fatal to monkeys but fortunately not to humans at a primate quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia in 1989.

Hantaviruses infect vertebrates and are usually transmitted by dried rodent feces blown into the air as dust. Hantaviruses cause two different human diseases: hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, in which damage to the kidneys is common, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, in which damage to the lungs is common. Hantaviruses were first identified in the Korean War when thousands of United Nations soldiers became ill with fever, headache, and acute renal failure. Outbreaks in the American Southwest have been the most recent occurrences of Hantavirus infection.

PREPARATION

1. Read the Helpful Background section of this Guide.

2. Be familiar with the location of the clips on the DVD, check for accuracy of the minute and second locations of the clips on the DVD, and practice getting quickly from one film clip to the other. Each of the clips starts at the beginning of a chapter of the DVD. This makes it easy to transition to the beginning of each clip. However, the teacher will have to be vigilant as to when to end the clips. An alternative is to simply play the film from Chapter 2 (when the film starts and the Warner Brothers Logo appears on the screen, skip to Chapter 2, minute 3:55) until the end of clip #5, minute 55:35, which will take about 53 minutes. If you select this alternative, you may ignore the remaining instructions in this step. However, be sure to stop the movie at 55:35 as Sam tells General Ford “And if one of them has got it then ten of them have get it. . . .” There’s good dialog for the next few seconds but it’s a little profane.

Clip #1: Chapter 2: Minute 3:55 to 7:05 (3 minutes, 50 seconds). When the film starts and the Warner Brothers Logo appears on the screen, skip to Chapter 2 (minute 3:55) The screen will be all black except for the words “Present day. ” Allow the movie to run for another 3:50 minutes until minute 7:05 which is the end of the chapter. The last scene shows Sam and Robby in the Level 4 facility working. At 7:05, just before the scene shifts to Sam’s house and the audience would hear him talking to his dogs, skip to Chapter 4. Chapter 3 deals with the subplot of the relationship between Sam and Robby.

Clip #2: Chapters 4 – 6: Minute 10:25 to 20:32 (10 minutes, 7 seconds) These chapters show the trip to Zaire to bring back samples of the Motaba virus. Chapter 4 begins when the army unit is shown loading the plane at minute 10:25. Chapter Six ends at minute 20:32 just after the Chinese sailor is feeding the host a banana. At that point skip to Chapter 8. Chapter 7 deals with the relationship subplot.

Clip #3: Portion of Chapter 8: 23:07 to to 26:45 (3 minutes 38 seconds). This clip starts at the beginning of Chapter 8. The first part of this chapter shows the conversation between Sam and Casey about Sam’s divorce. Sam is so distracted that he misses the fact that his suit is ripped, a mistake that could have led to his death when he entered the level 4 facility. It also shows a view of the virus. Stop at 26:45, after Sam says, “Kill it.” The scene then shifts to Major Ford going into the containment facility. The rest of Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 are the introduction to the fact that the Army has been developing a serum with antibodies to the virus with which to protect its own troops if it ever wants to use the virus as a biological weapon. The officer in charge is willing to allow thousands of civilians to die to protect the secrecy of the Army’s research. At 26:45 skip to Chapter 10.

Clip #4: Chapters 10 – 13: Minutes 30:25 – 40:38 (10 minutes 13 seconds) These chapters start with Jimbo taking the host through the Biotest Animal Holding Facility with the help of a bribed guard. They continue with the trip to the pet shop in Cedarville, Jimbo letting the monkey go free in the forest, and various deaths and infectious transmissions, culminating in an airborne transmission in a theater. Chapter 14 is about the effort to keep Sam contained so that the Army’s secret cure for the disease will not be discovered.

Clip #5: Chapters 15 – 17: Minutes 47:22 to 55:35 (8 minutes 13 seconds). This shows how the doctors attempt to trace the infection, how Sam discovers that the virus has become airborne, and the discovery of a second strain. Stop the movie at minute 55:35 as Sam tells General Ford ” And if one of them has got it then ten of them have get it. . . .” The dialog during the next few seconds is a little profane.

STEP BY STEP

1. Before showing the film, write on the board or tell students that, “‘The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.’ Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate” Tell students that they will be asked to come up with an answer about whether this is a true statement.

2.–– Unless you will be using the single slip of 53 minutes, tell students that the scenes you will be eliminating relate elements of the plot that don’t directly concern the transmission of infectious diseases. Some concern a subplot which tells the story of Sam’s distress at the breakup of the marriage of Sam and Robby and who will have custody of their pet dogs. They used to work together but now they hold similar positions as the leader of a team of scientists charged with protecting the public from infectious diseases. She is at the Centers for Disease Control and he works for the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

3. Show the film clips to the class.

4. After showing the clips, remind the class of the question posed before the film was shown and take answers.

“‘The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.’ Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate”

Suggested Response:

Viruses can be lethal and they frequently mutate, making it difficult to develop ways to fight them.

5. Concluding Assignment Suggestions: Students can be assigned to research and write papers on the following topics: (1) the Centers for Disease Control and its role in preventing the spread of communicable disease (the CDC is generally responsive to requests by students for information); (2) the path of the “Motaba” virus from reservoir host to epidemic as shown in the movie; (3) how the destruction of the rain forest could help to create new strains of disease; (4) whether the government has legal authority to eradicate an entire town for the purpose of preventing the spread of a deadly contagious disease to the entire nation; (5) the history of quarantine as a device for preventing the spread of disease; (6) the role of mutation in the spread of viruses; (6) the different means of diagnosing viral diseases such as Ebola; (7) why it is difficult for a vaccine to be created to stop a virus; and (8) why viruses are thought to be one of the greatest threats to human dominance of the planet.

This Snippet Lesson Plan was written by James Frieden . It was published on March 28, 2012.

SNIPPET MENU:

See Preparation Step #2.

For a film that contains some information about the transmission of viral diseases and which provides a realistic forecast of the response of the public health agencies and society in the event of an influenza pandemic, see Contagion .

WHY NOT SHOW THE WHOLE MOVIE?

TWM does not recommend showing the entire movie. After clip #5 the film’s science starts to deteriorate. In addition, the movie is rated R for profanity; however, in TWM’s opinion that is an undeserved rating.

BOOKS TO CHECK OUT:

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston; Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC, by Joseph B. McCormick (former head of the CDC’s special pathogens branch) and Sue Fisher-Hoch; and Ebola, by William Close are excellent books to accompany the study of the transmission of infectious diseases. McCormick, for example, is one of the few physicians who has treated patients with Ebola. He calls Close’s novel “the best researched and thus the most accurate account of all the events that took place … in 1976 [in the African Ebola outbreak].” We have not read any of these books nor have they been recommended to us for children

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OUTBREAK: Science Movie & More #11 (CDC / virus / Biology / Health / Sub)

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Description.

SCIENCE MOVIE AND MORE PACKET #11: OUTBREAK!

GRADES: 9-12

SUBJECT: SCIENCE, BIOLOGY, HEALTH, ANATOMY

SUB PLANS: YES!

This purchase is for a science-themed MOVIE GUIDE AND MORE ASSIGNMENT BUNDLE. This movie guide and additional follow-up/enhancement assignments goes along with the action-packed virus thriller OUTBREAK .

Anyone can simply show a movie. But why spend several hours trying to manage your students from napping, misbehaving, or feeling like a movie is an unearned “free day” when you can build their attention, focus, and education all while enjoying a NO PREP experience. This Movie and More Bundle will keep you covered for over three hours (3 class periods) and will keep students engaged, learning, and entertained. It’s perfect to use alongside any unit on earth science, weather, global warming or climate. It’s also great to have handy for emergency plans where you will miss several days of school in a row or to reward students at the end of any unit or project…all while keeping them learning and working!

OUR FEATURE: OUTBREAK

MOVIE RATING: R (profanity, scenes of blood & disease, and handling of dead bodies and medical procedures) be sure to follow your school’s guidelines when showing any movie. The movie is suitable for all high school grades. Outbreak can also be found on commercial TV readily where an edited version is run. Runtime = 2 Hours

MOVIE SUMMARY: Scientists for the USAMRIID and CDC work together to try to stop the outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever that has inflicted a small California town.

MOVIE AVAILABILITY: DVD is the easiest method (especially if you are leaving these plans for a substitute teacher) and used copies can be found cheap on Amazon or eBay. If you do not own the physical DVD there are numerous streaming services that may have the movie available, but streaming services will vary month-to-month.

EDUCATIONAL CONNECTIONS: This movie can easily be incorporated into any science classroom where units/lessons are focusing on: life science, health, virus & bacteria, CDC / WHO careers or epidemics/pandemics. MOVIE AND MORE!: Included with this movie guide bundle are the following products:

1) OUTBREAK – WATCH & LEARN PACKET

This packet of questions is perfect for students to complete as they watch the movie. Questions are paced appropriately and will retain student attention on the movie. A character picture guide is also included to limit student questions as they watch. ANSWER KEY INCLUDED .

2) ARTICLE: THE SCIENCE OF….OUTBREAK

This assignment provides students with the actual science true and false surrounding virus outbreak scenarios and compares/contrasts based on how it was presented in the movie. Great for post-movie reading and discussion. A question sheet is also included. ANSWER KEY INCLUDED .

3) CDC WEBQUEST – VIRUS RESEARCH

This webquest allows students to choose virus topics that interest them from 12 prechosen real world viruses. A great way for students to learn beyond the movie.

4) TOP 10 DEADLY VIRUS ARTICLE

This short article is ideal for homework or extra credit and provides highlights of 10 real world viruses and where they originated, there symptoms, and other general information.

5) CDC WORST VIRUS WEBQUEST

This 26 question webquest uses a slideshow presentation on the website www.livescience.com and provides students with photographs and information on a number of virus situations that the CDC had dealt with.

6) LEARNING POSTER – MOTABA VIRUS

This mini-project is great to form connections between the science of the movie and the real world. Students work alone or in partners to design a CDC poster to help share information about the Motaba Virus from the movie. (Samples of real CDC posters are provided for ideas)

7) EBOLA ARTICLE & QUESTION SHEET

This Motaba Virus from the movie is based on the real world Ebola Virus. This 2-page article and question sheet will give students plenty of information of the topic. Great to use before the movie so students have a better understanding of the accuracies and inaccuracies portrayed in Outbreak.

8) OUTBREAK – SMARTBOARD DISPLAY

This character display is perfect for Whiteboard/Smartboard prior to watching the movie. It’s an easy way to introduce your students to some of the characters and the movie theme before beginning the movie. Plus, displaying this during class warm-up time is an easy way to build excitement about the upcoming movie.

ALL PRODUCTS PROVIDED AS MS-WORD (DOC) AND PDF VERSIONS!

Each assignment with this bundle is provided as an MS-Word document (DOC) which will allow easy modifying to fit your classroom needs. Assignments are also included as PDF files to make it easy for use on all devices and for ease of printing on older computers. Answer keys for specific products included.

Thank you for your purchase and for taking the time to leave me positive feedback – AND ENJOY THE MOVIE!

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Notice: Marvelous Middle School and Marvelous Marketplace LLC is not affiliated with the corresponding movie or any other products using that name. Names and titles used in connection with this product are solely for ease of use and are for reference only.

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This 1995 film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus a small town in the United States. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California.Outbreakshows how far the military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly contagion.

This film can be checked out from your local library, viewed on Netflix, or purchased from retail stores.

“OUTBREAK”  - The Movie   var pfHeaderImgUrl = '';var pfHeaderTagline = '';var pfdisableClickToDel = 0;var pfHideImages = 0;var pfImageDisplayStyle = 'block';var pfDisablePDF = 0;var pfDisableEmail = 0;var pfDisablePrint = 0;var pfCustomCSS = '';var pfEncodeImages = 0;var pfShowHiddenContent = 0;var pfBtVersion='2';(function(){var js,pf;pf=document.createElement('script');pf.type='text/javascript';pf.src='//cdn.printfriendly.com/printfriendly.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(pf)})();                                           

1. Describe an incubation period as it is illustrated in the movie.

2.  Describe the difference between Levels 1-4.

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4  

3. How is the Hanta virus related to the alleged start of the AIDS virus?

4.  Describe how the immune response is illustrated in the movie.

5.  List some of the disease transmission modes illustrated in the movie.

. What is the purpose of quarantine?

7. What is a “host animal”?

8.  Why didn’t the monkey that was sick in the cage die?

Short Essay  (use separate page)

9.  What is the role of government in protecting citizens from disease?

10.  Does the government have the right to quarantine people or to even kill individuals or communities to protect the lives of the rest of the nation?   (Defend your position)

STUDENT VIDEO RELEASE FORM

We will be viewing the video “outbreak” in class as part of a unit on microbiology and epidemiology. . this film is rated "r" because of the following:  profanity and strong language, dramatic images of illness and disease. .

The path of a virus from a host animal to humans and then spreading to epidemic proportions is shown in this movie.  The movie addresses the role of the government and the Centers for Disease Control in an epidemic and protecting society from the spread of disease.   Scientific principles such as viruses, disease transmission, and sterile techniques are also shown in the film.   The film explores moral questions regarding what society’s responsibility to those who are sick and what measures can be taken to prevent the spread of a deadly disease.

PARENT/GUARDIAN SIGNATURE:

SIGNATURE _______________________________________

• Health Science
• Infectious Disease

*OUTBREAK* Movie Assignment

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It is one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen.

Wolfgang Petersen’s “Outbreak” is a clever, daunting thriller about such a possibility. It follows the career of a microscopic bug that kills humans within 24 hours of exposure by liquefying the internal organs. Not a pretty picture. The bug is based on fact; an account of something similar can be found in Richard Preston’s new book, The Hot Zone . The thriller occupies the same territory as countless science fiction movies about deadly invasions and high-tech conspiracies, but has been made with intelligence and an appealing human dimension.

“Outbreak” opens 30 years ago, in Africa, as American doctors descend on a small village that has been wiped out by a deadly new plague. They promise relief but send instead a single airplane that incinerates the village with a firebomb. The implication is that the microbe is too deadly to deal with any other way; there is no information about where the bug came from, or why it surfaced in this remote area, although the village witch doctor is quoted ominously: “It is not good to kill the trees.” Flash forward to the present. Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo are a newly divorced couple, both experts in disease-causing microorganisms. He works for the Army, and she has just taken a new job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. As we follow the disintegration of their relationship, Petersen intercuts scenes showing an African monkey being illegally imported into the United States. This monkey, of course, carries the deadly bug, and the smuggler, unable to sell it, releases it in a California woodland, although not before being infected.

Petersen now shows the disease being spread from one carrier to another, in a montage that would be funny if it were not so chilling: When the first carrier gets off a flight to Boston, he is flushed, sweating, trembling and almost too weak to stand, but his girlfriend, of course, doesn’t let his illness stand in the way of a long, deep kiss. Back in a small California town, an infected carrier sneezes in a movie theater, and the camera stalks the germs as they wend their way through the crowd. In a laboratory, a test tube breaks in a centrifuge, and a scientist is infected. And so on. I especially liked the moment when the smuggler takes one bite out of a cookie on an airplane, and a little kid asks him if he’s planning to eat the rest of it.

Soon reports of a plague outbreak filter in from Boston and California. Hoffman is assigned to the case by his superior officer ( Morgan Freeman ). But as he and a colleague ( Kevin Spacey ) follow the trail of infection and spread, we get glimpses of a deep conspiracy involving Freeman’s own commanding officer, a sinister general played by Donald Sutherland . For some reason, the Army has secrets involving this bug. It also possesses an antidote, although after the microbe mutates into a different form, only the original carrier – the monkey – can serve as the source of an antibody.

Petersen and his writers, Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool , now combine the conventions of several different kinds of thrillers into one gripping story. There is medical detective work, military conspiracy, marital and professional jealousy, and finally an action climax in which Hoffman and his daring helicopter pilot (Cuba Gooding Jr.) fly all over California and even out to a ship at sea in a race against time and against another deadly bomb drop.

“Outbreak” is the kind of movie you enjoy even while you observe yourself being manipulated. The Hoffman character has been recycled out of dozens of other movies; he’s the military version of that old crime standby, the Cop With a Theory No One Believes In. Sutherland plays a role so familiar that he, himself, can be seen playing the flipside of the same character in a Soviet uniform, in the current HBO movie “Citizen X.” But the roles are well written and acted, and Morgan Freeman, as a general caught in the middle, brings something quite real: a general trapped between obeying instructions and his own better instincts.

It is a Hollywood law these days that all thrillers end with a chase. Mere dialogue-driven endings are too slow for today’s attention-deprived audiences. I am not sure I believed the helicopter chase sequence in “Outbreak,” and I am sure I didn’t believe the standoff between a helicopter and a bomber (in a scene with echoes of “ Dr. Strangelove “). But by then the movie had cleverly aligned its personal, military, medical and scientific plots into four simultaneous countdowns, and I was hooked.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Renee Russo as Dr. Robby Keough
• Dustin Hoffman as Col. Sam Daniels, M.D.
• Morgan Freeman as Gen. Billy Ford

Directed by

• Wolfgang Petersen

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“Outbreak” Movie Assignment Analysis

The film, Outbreak, portrays the efforts of an army virologist, Sam Daniels, to prevent a global biological disaster. A rare killer virus from the African jungle has started an epidemic in a small northern California commu7nity. The virus has a 100% mortality rate. The film follows the scientists and army officers as they trace the epidemic and seek to contain it. The store in the film is fictional BUT could something like this really happen? The questions in Part 1 are listed for you to answer and use to digest what is occurring in the movie.

You must take notes and answer the questions during the movie. Part 2, which can be done after you view the movie, is a list of things that happened during the story. Some of them seem to be minor incidents, but each one has importance in advancing plot. Your job is to tell how each event is important to the story. Part 3, covers overall discussion questions summarizing and examining the occurrences of the movie. This is to be typed and answered in formal format. Citations could be used in this section. Part 1 – Chronological Order Movie Questions . Why was the mercenary camp in the Motaba River Valley of Zaire bombed in 1967? Was this ethical? Explain. 1. In the film, we see a progression of laboratory safety levels at the U. S. Army Medical research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Below is a description of each level. As one progresses from level to level, describe the differences shown and the procedures and safety methods observed. Biosafety Level 1 (BS1) – Minimum biohazard; study of low risk infectious agents: Pneumococcus, and Salmonella.

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Biosafety Level 2 (BS2) – Moderate biohazard; infectious agents: hepatitis, Lyme Disease, and Influenza. Biosafety Level 3 (BS3) – High biohazard; multiple vaccinations required; infectious agents: infectious agents: anthraz, typhus, and HIV. Biosafety Level 4 (BS4) – Extreme biohazard; maximum security; high virulent; no known cures or vaccines; infectious agents: Ebola, Lassa, and Hanta viruses. 1. Why were Sam Daniels and his crew sent to the Motaba Valley, Zaire? 1. How did the mystery disease get to the Motaba Valley?

1. What is the tribesman’s explanation of why the disease was affecting the tribe? Do you feel that there could be any truth to the explanation? Justify your answer. 1. (a) What are the characteristics of the mystery disease? AND (b) Why was it said that the virus was contained? 1. Why did Casey show so much concern about the small tear in Daniels’ suit as they were about to enter the BS4 area of the lab? 1. One of the staff describes the name “Motaba virus” as sounding like the name of a perfume…”one drop and you’ll feel so different, your sweetheart will melt in your arms. How did these words have a prophetic significance? 1. What measures were taken in Cedar Creek to contain the outbreak? 1. What was Operation Clean Sweep? Why did many officials think it was necessary? 1. What was the reason that the E-1101 antiserum against Motaba virus kept a secret? 1. Why was Daniels so intent on capturing the monkey in Palisades, California? After capturing the monkey, what were Daniels and his team able to do? 1. How did Daniels prevent the success of Operation Clean Sweep? Part 2 – Each of these incidents from the film has some significance to the story.

Describe how each one is important either in the spread of the epidemic or in efforts to trace and contain it. 1. The disease affects many people at the mercenary camp on Motaba Valley, Zaire. 1. The camp in Zaire is firebombed. 1. Daniels receives a telephone call as he is bathing the dogs. 1. The new man on the team is briefed before leaving for Zaire. 1. The monkey is trapped in the Motaba Valley. 1. A phone call is made by Jimbo Scott from the animal holding facility in San Jose, California. 1. The monkey scratches Rudy Alvarez at the pet shop. . Jimbo Scott releases the monkey into the woods in California. 1. Henry Seward, hospital laboratory technician, is accidentally sprayed with Rudy Alvarez’ blood from a tube in the centrifuge. 1. Jimbo Scott kisses Allison at Logan Airport in Boston. 1. Henry Seward coughs during a movie in a crowded thearter. 1. A patient is discovered at Cedar Creek Hospital who has the disease but has no contact with others who are sick. 1. Two different strains of the Motaba virus are discovered in Cedar Creek. 1. Casey becomes ill.

1. Robbie is stuck with a needle that she was injecting into Casey. 1. The dead man is found on the ship and a picture of a monkey is found above his bunk. 1. Mrs. Jeffries sees a picture of the monkey on television. 1. Daniels’ helicopter blocks the path of the airplane carrying the firebomb. Overall Questions 1. Describe how the virologists determined the identity of the virus causing the disease, how they tracked the epidemic and how they eventually conquered the virus. 1. Why was the Motaba Virus so dangerous after it mutated?

1. If a virus, just like the Motaba virus in the movie, were to break out in a Canadian city, do you think it would be acceptable to do what the government had planned? Explain your answer. 1. Consider your answer to the last question. Would your opinion change if the lives of the rest of Canada depended on it? What about the rest of the world? 1. Do you think it is okay to sacrifice human life for the benefit of other humans? Explain. What would the Catholic Churches perspective be on this topic? 1. How does the movie relate to your everyday life?

What things can you do to prevent or limit contamination from any virus? . At the beginning of the film is a quote by Nobel Prize Winner Joshua Lederberg. “The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on this planet is the virus” Discuss this quote. Do you agree with it? Why or why not? What evidence from this film supports Lederberg’s view? What evidence from other sources that you have read or viewed lends support? What do you feel is significant about Lederberg’s statement in light of recent news regarding bioterrorism? What do you fell will be the future of human dominance on Earth? Support your views with facts and logical thought.

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