Miasma by Ken McClure

Author:Ken McClure [McClure, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saltoun
Published: 2019-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Tally. ‘The world’s gone crazy . . . Less than a week since the end of one outbreak another one erupts . . . it’s just not possible . . . it’s just not fair!’

Steven could hear the emotion in Tally’s voice and it wasn’t making things any easier for him to persuade her that she must turn away from it all. ‘How did you hear about it?’ he asked.

‘The regional manager for WHO, Marcus Altman, called me this morning. He’s not sure what’s going to happen . . .’

‘Tally, what do you know about North Kivu?’

‘It’s hundreds of miles away from where I am.’

‘I’ve been investigating with help from the Foreign Office,’ Steven said, ‘it’s a little piece of hell on earth, completely without law and order with a civilian population living under the most atrocious conditions because so much in the way of housing has been destroyed in the continual fighting in the region. This has led to such severe overcrowding that Ebola will rage through the community like a forest fire after a long drought. The warring factions are completely without mercy and would put ISIS to shame when it came to inflicting pain and slaughter on their fellow citizens. You must not even consider going there.’

‘I haven’t been asked . . . no one has . . . no one saw it coming,’ said Tally, still sounding upset.

‘You might be,’ said Steven. ‘In the absence of any better idea, it will be an almost automatic thing for the authorities to ask those already in the country to carry on without putting any real thought into it and that could lead to absolute disaster. It’s clear thinking that’s needed not three cheers for the firemen as they walk into the flames never to return.’

‘We can’t just turn our backs, Steven.’

‘You must. It’s time for others to do the right thing, it’s a different response that’s needed.’

‘Which is?’

‘They have to stop the virus getting out of Kivu. Nothing else matters. Kivu is to all intents a war zone where no one can tell friend from foe. It’s pointless for outsiders to even try. All acts of human kindness will have to be side-lined and cold hard facts recognised. You know as well as I do, we cannot treat Ebola – we have nothing to treat it with – and highly skilled nursing will only save one in ten at great risk to the nurses. All efforts have to be centred on stopping the virus escaping and starting the pandemic we all fear could sweep the world. The only thing we have in our armoury is a vaccine and please God, we can get enough of it. It has to be used to create a belt of healthy immunised people round the whole infected region so that the virus cannot cross it. Viruses need living tissue to survive. If they can’t find someone new to infect, they will die. People trying to break out of the region have to be turned back.

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