( CNN ) -- Had enough of Ebola news coverage ? Wait until you see the TV series . According to The Hollywood Reporter , director Ridley Scott and producer Lynda Obst are getting behind a limited TV series based on Richard Preston 's 1994 best-seller , `` The Hot Zone . '' The two have actually had the property for years and have been developing its latest iteration for several months . With the disease back in the news -- with fear of an epidemic just as timely -- the topicality of the subject is all-too-perfect for a series , Obst told the publication . `` I think it 's the speed with which it kills that makes the disease so frightening , '' she said . `` People hoped it would stay in some remote part of the world . But that 's a fantasy in the modern world . The modern world makes us one big connected family . '' Steven Soderbergh 's 2011 film `` Contagion '' addressed similar issues . That movie 's screenwriter , Scott Z. Burns , told The Wrap that his main concern is less with the disease itself than with the fear and fear-mongering . `` What scares me more than Ebola are the more mundane viruses of stupidity and fear and partisan politics , '' Burns said . Deadly diseases : Epidemics throughout history . The Ebola outbreak , which started in March , has killed almost 4,500 people in West Africa , and the World Health Organization estimates there could be up to 10,000 new Ebola cases per week in the three hardest-hit nations by the end of the year . However , WHO announced the end of the Ebola outbreak in Senegal on Friday and hopes to do the same with Nigeria on Monday . In the meantime , a handful of cases have emerged in the United States , fanning concern and leading to the appointment of an `` Ebola czar . '' Texas worker quarantined on cruise ship . Scott may direct the first episode of the series , says The Hollywood Reporter . Author Preston , who wrote the basis for `` The Hot Zone '' for The New Yorker in 1992 , has another story coming out in the magazine about Ebola soon . Obst , who is one of the producers of Christopher Nolan 's forthcoming `` Interstellar , '' has high hopes for the project . `` A limited series is a great way to do this because you do n't have to limit it to a three-act structure like you do with a film , '' she said .
Ridley Scott , Ridley Scott doing an Ebola-themed TV series . Story will be drawn from Richard Preston 's best-seller , `` The Hot Zone '' has killed two in Africa . Worries have stoked fear , been aired in the United States .