The Malthus Pandemic

by Terry Morgan

CHAPTER 2

  Kevin Parker had just finished another week at the Bristol University School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. But his regular Friday night drinking session with fellow lecturers and other hangers-on had been postponed because Kevin had an appointment.

  He had spent most of the day in the library rather than teaching, so Kevin was even more casually dressed that normal. As he locked the door of his cluttered flat in Clifton he was wearing crumpled brown corduroy trousers, a green, open-necked shirt beneath a bright red sweater that said Liverpool FC on the front.

  With six years of trying to teach British Economic and Social History to students with mixed results and very little self satisfaction behind him, Kevin's weekends, most evenings and any other spare time was spent on his real interest - moderating the website of the International Malthus Society.

  "Dedicated to exploring the ideas of Thomas Malthus on a theoretical and a practical level" was the somewhat uninspiring strap line of Kevin's website. But it opened the doors for all sorts of comment, opinion, political lobbying or action linked to Thomas Malthus' dire, eighteenth century warnings of the effects of overpopulation.

  Kevin was on his way by train to London to give what he thought was a talk to Malthus Society members and any other enthusiasts interested in human population control. Kevin was an expert on the subject. He lectured on it so had all the facts and figures at his fingertips but he also tried hard to temper his lectures to conceal his own views and, even more so, his radical solutions. After all, he told some in private, he was not there to behave like some radical cleric in an Islamic mosque.

  But he would often feel comfortable enough to expound on his wish to see direct action to radically reduce the world population so that the quality of life for those remaining improved. That was why he was looking forward to giving the lecture.

  But the invitation had come as a surprise to Kevin. It had been a phone call from someone he hadn't even heard of and the man was clearly an Arab if the accent and name of El Badry was anything to go by. He also seemed to be an Arab with money as the flat Kevin had been invited to was overlooking Chelsea Embankment. It would certainly be large enough to hold several other members of the Malthus Society if that was what the caller intended.

  On the train, Kevin took out his notes and a yellow marker and, in total innocence of who he was to meet, set about highlighting the points he wanted to make.

  Larry Brown had always had a somewhat morbid interest in infectious diseases. He told friends that he could trace it back to watching a video as a boy. While his younger sister played at being a nurse, Larry would sit and watch and then replay the video about leprosy, chagas disease, yellow fever and leptospirosis. His sister had gone on to become a lawyer but it was Larry who became the doctor. But the childhood fascination with infection and tropical disease had never waned and was one reason why he had left New York to travel, first to South America and then to West Africa.

  Doctor Larry Brown, now in his late thirties and new to his post with the American Embassy commercial team in Lagos, Nigeria had just spent two nights in the northern State capital of Kano. The smaller city of Jos in neighbouring Plateau State was, according to Larry's calculations, only about 150 miles away so as the Evangel Hospital in Jos had always held top spot in Larry's list of places with especially interesting diseases, the chance for a quick visit was too good to miss.

  In 1969, before Larry was born, the Evangel Hospital had been the first centre in West Africa to identify the hemorrhagic, flesh-eating, Lassa Fever virus that still causes around five thousand deaths a year across West Africa. Two missionary nurses at the Evangel Hospital died of the virus and a third fell ill and was flown to the USA. It was here where the virus was isolated and named. A year later, the medical director at the hospital, a missionary surgeon, also caught Lassa Fever after she accidentally cut herself during an autopsy. She was dead within two days.

  After his visit and hoping that diplomatic relations between the US and Nigeria had been enhanced by his short and unannounced intrusion, Larry began to consider what he himself had discovered the day before during his time in Kano. The more he thought about it the more he was convinced that he might have discovered another new fever. It had none of the characteristics of Lassa Fever but if the estimated death toll in Kano of more than one hundred was accurate then someone needed to sit up and take notice. But no-one yet had.

  Larry's official visit to Kano had been at the request of his Embassy superiors in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, and the line was that it would be useful diplomacy for an American to be seen to be doing something for the ordinary people. All the better if it was handled in a way that could not possibly be interpreted as remotely political or in any shape or form designed to inflame ongoing tensions with the northern Moslem community.

  So, someone had organised a debate for two schools in Kano. The topic of discussion was to be "Who is more important to society, the teacher or the doctor" and was designed to encourage students to speak good and correct American English using appropriate American expressions. Who better to run the debate, then, than a real live doctor fresh out of New York - and a black one with ancestral roots in West Africa at that.

  But Larry had never been a man who did his job and then went home. He met the students as required, learned far more from them than they did from him, went back to his hotel and then, with time on his hands decided to explore Kano.

  Whether he was also naturally drawn to clinics and old mission hospitals he didn't know but as he wandered down the Kofar Wambai Road watching, listening to and smelling the local, Kano life he took off down one of the side streets. And he had hardly walked fifty yards when he found himself looking up at a plastic banner hanging, upside down on a thread of red nylon string. It was flapping in the steady, dusty breeze over the entrance to a single story, concrete building with rusting bars fronting unwashed windows. Perhaps it was because a red cross is never upside down, but it made him stop and, by twisting his head to read the rest of the banner, Larry could see it said, "Kofi Clinic."

  Interest sparked, Larry thought he'd take a look inside. Being a black American doctor of West African descent, Larry had started to enjoy his ability to blend in with the locals and, as he also enjoyed checking out run down clinical establishments, this one looked like the best example he'd come across for some time. He pushed open the unlocked, wooden door and stood in a dark and dusty hallway that might, had the electricity been turned on, have been lit by a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. At the far end was another door.

  "It is closed, sir." The voice that came from behind was that of an elderly woman Larry had seen sitting and sewing outside on a stool. She was now stood behind him holding an old shirt and with the needle and thread hanging from the corner of her mouth.

  Dressed in a long, colourful dress she also wore what Larry had recently learned was known, at least in Lagos, as a “Gele” - a Yoruba word for an ornate female head-dress. Despite the plastic stool, the dust, the trash and the lumps of concrete rubble around her feet, the woman looked clean, smart and educated. Larry introduced himself. "Closed down, you say?"

  "Yes, sir. Very dirty," she said and removed the needle and thread from between her lips.

  "So who owned the clinic?"

  "Doctor Mustafa."

  "Did he have many patients?" Larry asked peering down the dark hallway. All he could see was a grey metal filing cabinet with empty drawers hanging out.

  "No sir."

  "Where has he gone?"

  "I don't know, sir," the old lady said and started to walk back to her stool.

  "Do you live locally?" Larry asked as he followed her. She pointed to a concrete block building opposite with a corrugated tin roof and open doorway.

  "Did you see patients arrive here?"

  "Yes sir, the doctor brought them in his truck."

  "A truck? Do you know what happened to them - his patients?"

&nb
sp; "Yes, they died."

  "So were they very sick when they arrived here?"

  "I don't know sir. I was a teacher but not a doctor."

  "Of course," said Larry understandingly. "Do you know how many died?"

  The old lady already seemed engrossed in her sewing once again but Larry noticed she looked at him out of the corner of her eye as if unsure whether to say anything. Then she glanced back down to her sewing and said, very quietly, "I heard it was more than one hundred." Then she got up again and started to walk away. Larry followed her.

  "So who decided to close the clinic?" asked Larry.

  "The State Government sir." Then she hurried across the road.

  Back at the Prince Hotel in Kano where he was staying, Larry phoned the American Embassy in Abuja and told them briefly what he had found. Pleased that no-one asked him how his earlier meeting with the students had gone or why he was wasting time wandering around Kano instead of hot footing it back to Lagos, he was given a phone number for the Kano State Government and a department that might be able to answer a few questions about the Kofi Clinic.