While he sat on the Boeing 777 of Malsaya Airlines heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, professor Glenn Thomas could not know that that would be the last flight of his life. For a scientist of his standing (one of the world’s leading experts on Ebola disease) going from one end to the other end of the planet was a normality. I wonder what must have run through his mind while he tied up his seatbelts and eyes drooping from fatigue during the many hours cruising? Certainly not the mishap that, shortly after, a missile would have pulverized his life and that of other 282 people.
Glenn Thomas was an easy-going chap and (it is said, rumored and whispered) seemed to conceal dark secrets about alleged experiments on the Ebola virus in the laboratories for biological weapons at a hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. For bloggers, it was more immaginative and drawing conclusions and reconducting the mysterious polling don of the boeing, as a scientific act in eliminating an awkward personality, which apeare as though h had refused to go along with a programme apt on spreading the epidemy in order to test a vaccine.
Visionaries? It is possible, indeed even probable. Coincidence: shortly after his death the spreading of Ebola has reached terror levels. The latest numbers are a witness: 121 dead and 81 new cases in just 24 hours in Sierra Leone. The fever with a haemorrage- quite a filthy, awful business., A subtle thread of death joining Guinea, Liberia, Senegal to Nigeria and it is terrorizing particularly Spain, United States and Saudi Arabia. According to the World Health Organization to date the total death toll of Ebola victims acconts for 3,349 deaths out of a total of 7,492 cases in West Africa.
The mortality of this disease exceeds 50%. A death-killer. A monster that is devouring with untold suffering the poverty-stricken of the planet. It seems that this be its real vocation: to kill people who cannot afford any health treatment and prevention. No, at this point, 150 million Euros contributed by the European Union have served to no pupose, further to 100 million Dollars and 3000 military men deployed by the USA to cope with the emergency military deployed from 3000 to cope with the emergency.
At the same time, while you may be reading this article, many people are falling ill, manifesting the first symptoms, are shaken by fever chills on hospital beds, spit and haemorrage again until their hearts fail. It is a race against death in Africa, at this time, and it seems it is destined to be lost. The question is: could it have been avoided? And, without transcending into political fiction, what really has been done to avoid this human tragedy when, on the outbreak of the first cases had been already recorded last March? Not much seeing by results. Because of these outbreaks of Ebola, in the last 40 years, there have been so many but they have reached inconceivable levels. And then the suffering of those who falls ill and die are a slap in the face to those who have underestimated the problem, labeling it as an African issue. And we are petrified today, now that the ‘bubble’ has exploded and I wonder to what extent it is bound to spread) as usual, we are dealing with ‘Miss Egoism’ a daughter of yester year.
Translation provided by Marina Stronati
