Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Wgbh Boston
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304096720
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,533 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

The Ebola virus and its devastating impact is profiled as you travel behind the quarantine line with NOVA and the scientists battling to contain this most deadly of viruses. Winner of GOLD PLAQUE 1997 Chicago International Television Festival.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Puts You in the Hot Zone!, February 17, 2002

By 

Stephan Bullard "sgbullard" (Hartford, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nova: Ebola the Plague Fighters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I don't believe I can heap enough praise on this video. This is truly an incredible piece of film. I teach comparative physiology at a medium-sized university and purchased this video to show as part of my immunology section. I was expecting a documentary-like video covering the history of Ebola with a few graphic scenes of the 1995 Kikwit outbreak. Instead, I was incredibly surprised and excited to discover that almost all of the film comes directly from Kikwit and was shot during the actual outbreak (i.e., when no one knew how large an outbreak it would become, and when the cameramen themselves were in grave danger). The video follows the efforts of international and Zairian doctors as they work to contain the outbreak. Unlike many similar videos, however, Ebola, The Plague Fighters does not gloss over the social aspects of the epidemic. Rather, the video also documents the upheaval and fear that Ebola causes in the Kikwit community. One particularly human scene involves student doctors who discover the body of a victim, realize they have to do something immediately to protect the community, yet have to deal with the situation even though they lack the proper equipment to safely approach the body. Overall this video provides a unique perspective into modern disease fighting. Literally every scene seems to be more interesting and compelling than the last. Some scenes are graphic, so it is probably not appropriate for young audiences. However, assuming students are warned in advance, I believe that this would be an excellent video to show high school and college students. It is also a must for anyone interested in emerging viruses and epidemiology.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real story of "Outbreak", June 21, 2000

By 

Carrie (Kansas, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nova: Ebola the Plague Fighters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video is very compelling! I show it each year in my general biology classes (10th graders)and every year several of the students want to discuss the material outside of class. It not only has a lot of good information about the ebola virus itself and how it affects the body, physically, but it also shows the emotional strain put on the victim's families, as well as the thoughts of the doctors working with the patients. I usually show the movie "Outbreak" after viewing this video so the students can see the correlation, and we follow up with a discussion of biological warfare. There are some scenes which are rather grotesque and students who have weak stomachs are warned ahead of time, but the information presented in this video is so powerful that it is one of the students, and my, favorites. To see just how damaging a virus, which is thousands of times smaller than a bacteria, can be to an individual, a region, and a country is stunning, and scary!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About A Virus With No Cure And No Treatment, January 6, 2005

By 

G. Reid (Roseland, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nova: Ebola the Plague Fighters [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The video about the Ebola Virus is well done. The Ebola Virus kills a high percentage of its victims (77% in the 1995 outbreak). Fortunately, the outbreak was confined to a remote region of Zaire in May 1995. Learn how disease specialists traced the origins of the outbreak to one person by compiling a complete chain of everyone killed by the virus.