The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.
(Theodore Roosevelt)
Tropical rain forest… Konrad Schabunde looked around uneasily. What kind of beast was at the origin of the actual disease? Monkey? Or bat? Or quite something else? The Lobai Fever was transmitted via body fluids – and it was highly contagious. About one quarter of the infected died within fourteen days – either from multiple organ failure or internal bleeding or both. Another quarter didn’t die, but didn’t get well either. And the rest seemed to recuperate quite normally.
A lethality of twenty-five percent was devastating. One hoped to reduce the quota by medical treatment, but hadn’t found the proper lever yet. Blood substitution didn’t work; it didn’t even delay decay. The illness – the virus – resided in the lymphatic system. One had identified the little rascal, but hadn’t yet found a way to fight it. Konrad was accompanying a team of hunters tasked to shoot as many different animals as possible. It was Konrad’s job to extract samples – blood, tissue, marrow.
One didn’t know how the fever had arrived in the villages. Three people had fallen ill at about the same time. One of them was still alive, but unresponsive. What had they done? Or eaten? Incubation time was six to ten days. Fortunately, the local authorities had immediately enacted a lockdown. There – as far as one could tell – was no spread beyond the cluster of small villages between rivers Lobai and Ubangi, where the disease had been detected first.
These trailblazer villages weren’t really connected to the high-speed lines of communication. Therefore, isolation had been effective. – It didn’t bear contemplating the disease had struck at Bangi, the node of the great railway lines east – west and north – south. Yeah, by chance, one had escaped a major disaster. An incubation time of one week allowed even travelling to Germany before the symptoms started…
(Theodore Roosevelt)
Tropical rain forest… Konrad Schabunde looked around uneasily. What kind of beast was at the origin of the actual disease? Monkey? Or bat? Or quite something else? The Lobai Fever was transmitted via body fluids – and it was highly contagious. About one quarter of the infected died within fourteen days – either from multiple organ failure or internal bleeding or both. Another quarter didn’t die, but didn’t get well either. And the rest seemed to recuperate quite normally.
A lethality of twenty-five percent was devastating. One hoped to reduce the quota by medical treatment, but hadn’t found the proper lever yet. Blood substitution didn’t work; it didn’t even delay decay. The illness – the virus – resided in the lymphatic system. One had identified the little rascal, but hadn’t yet found a way to fight it. Konrad was accompanying a team of hunters tasked to shoot as many different animals as possible. It was Konrad’s job to extract samples – blood, tissue, marrow.
One didn’t know how the fever had arrived in the villages. Three people had fallen ill at about the same time. One of them was still alive, but unresponsive. What had they done? Or eaten? Incubation time was six to ten days. Fortunately, the local authorities had immediately enacted a lockdown. There – as far as one could tell – was no spread beyond the cluster of small villages between rivers Lobai and Ubangi, where the disease had been detected first.
These trailblazer villages weren’t really connected to the high-speed lines of communication. Therefore, isolation had been effective. – It didn’t bear contemplating the disease had struck at Bangi, the node of the great railway lines east – west and north – south. Yeah, by chance, one had escaped a major disaster. An incubation time of one week allowed even travelling to Germany before the symptoms started…