will be substituted.â
âPreposterous! What is she playing at? God knows malaria gets little enough newspaper coverage when there is HIV and bird flu to chase after, but what little we get is focused on her alleged discovery. Every time a journalist speaks to me they only want to know one thing â Have I read the Stroud-Jones paper? I havenât, and I want to.â
âWhere is she?â Loebe asked.
âIâm afraid nobody knows,â Zoe said. âSheâs disappeared.â
âDisappeared? There can only be one explanation,â Friederikson said. âHer discovery is a myth. It doesnât work, she now knows it doesnât work and sheâs too cowardly to come out and say it.â
âWhat a crock of shit,â Max said. âIâm no scientist, Prof, but I know one thing. You donât have the first idea whatâs going on, so why donât you wait until you do, okay?â
âAnd Iâve known Erica for twenty years,â yelled Zoe. âShe has more moral courage in her little finger than you, Professor, have in your entire body. If it didnât work she would admit it. Your trouble is that you donât want it to work.â
âOutrageous!â roared Friederikson, knuckles tight on his stick. âBefore you were born I was devoting my life to thisâ¦â
âPlease, everybody. Calm down.â Milward nodded towards the doorway, where a bearded man in jeans and a press pass pinned to his polo shirt was scribbling notes furiously. Tanya was doing her best to block him from getting any closer.
âMike Penstein, Newsweek,â the journalist barked. âIs it true that Stroud-Jones has gone missing?â
Zoe, Max, Friederikson, Loebe and Milward looked at each other for a moment, then chorused âNo commentâ. The journalist looked heavenward as Tanya closed the door on him. They ignored the further questions shouted through the door.
Loebe was laughing softly to himself, his scars flexing. âPerhaps Erica has been kidnapped?â
âMinister,â said Milward. âThis is
Amsterdam
.â
âHunchbacked and silent, it gorges itself on the blood of its victims as they sleep. The disease it carries kills more than 1.5 million people a year, and reduces three hundred million to a shivering, sweating terror. For fifty years humanity has tried to wipe it out â and failed.
The name of the beast is
Anopheles
, the malarial mosquito. It has adapted brilliantly to all mankindâs worst habits. It delights in rainforest destruction, climate change, and pollution. It adores population and refugee movements, which give it new and vulnerable populations on which to feed. It revels in war in common only with the rat and the maggot.
The adaptable mosquito can breed in a few drops of clean water in an old tyre or tin can or a wheel rut, and has readily taken to urban areas. In India there is even a species of Anopheles which breeds in rooftop airconditioning tanks.
Of course,
Anopheles
is only the steed that carries malaria. In this Apocalypse there are also Four Horsemen:
Plasmodium falciparum
,
Plasmodium vivax
,
Plasmodium ovale
and
Plasmodium malariae
. Their names are familiar only to the few dedicated and underfunded scientists who fight them, but their effects are known to billions in the tropical world. These are the tiny parasites which cause the disease in man and mosquito, the deadly cycle of death and sickness.
The parasites have foiled all attempts to develop a vaccine against them, and are increasingly resistant to the drugs used to treat them. There is a desperate need for funding to find new drugs, but major pharmaceutical companies have largely turned their backs on a market where the victims have no money.
Beware! We are the four horsemenâs greatest ally. Global warming may bring them back as killers to the temperate world, in which we, the complacent wealthy, have taken our
âPreposterous! What is she playing at? God knows malaria gets little enough newspaper coverage when there is HIV and bird flu to chase after, but what little we get is focused on her alleged discovery. Every time a journalist speaks to me they only want to know one thing â Have I read the Stroud-Jones paper? I havenât, and I want to.â
âWhere is she?â Loebe asked.
âIâm afraid nobody knows,â Zoe said. âSheâs disappeared.â
âDisappeared? There can only be one explanation,â Friederikson said. âHer discovery is a myth. It doesnât work, she now knows it doesnât work and sheâs too cowardly to come out and say it.â
âWhat a crock of shit,â Max said. âIâm no scientist, Prof, but I know one thing. You donât have the first idea whatâs going on, so why donât you wait until you do, okay?â
âAnd Iâve known Erica for twenty years,â yelled Zoe. âShe has more moral courage in her little finger than you, Professor, have in your entire body. If it didnât work she would admit it. Your trouble is that you donât want it to work.â
âOutrageous!â roared Friederikson, knuckles tight on his stick. âBefore you were born I was devoting my life to thisâ¦â
âPlease, everybody. Calm down.â Milward nodded towards the doorway, where a bearded man in jeans and a press pass pinned to his polo shirt was scribbling notes furiously. Tanya was doing her best to block him from getting any closer.
âMike Penstein, Newsweek,â the journalist barked. âIs it true that Stroud-Jones has gone missing?â
Zoe, Max, Friederikson, Loebe and Milward looked at each other for a moment, then chorused âNo commentâ. The journalist looked heavenward as Tanya closed the door on him. They ignored the further questions shouted through the door.
Loebe was laughing softly to himself, his scars flexing. âPerhaps Erica has been kidnapped?â
âMinister,â said Milward. âThis is
Amsterdam
.â
âHunchbacked and silent, it gorges itself on the blood of its victims as they sleep. The disease it carries kills more than 1.5 million people a year, and reduces three hundred million to a shivering, sweating terror. For fifty years humanity has tried to wipe it out â and failed.
The name of the beast is
Anopheles
, the malarial mosquito. It has adapted brilliantly to all mankindâs worst habits. It delights in rainforest destruction, climate change, and pollution. It adores population and refugee movements, which give it new and vulnerable populations on which to feed. It revels in war in common only with the rat and the maggot.
The adaptable mosquito can breed in a few drops of clean water in an old tyre or tin can or a wheel rut, and has readily taken to urban areas. In India there is even a species of Anopheles which breeds in rooftop airconditioning tanks.
Of course,
Anopheles
is only the steed that carries malaria. In this Apocalypse there are also Four Horsemen:
Plasmodium falciparum
,
Plasmodium vivax
,
Plasmodium ovale
and
Plasmodium malariae
. Their names are familiar only to the few dedicated and underfunded scientists who fight them, but their effects are known to billions in the tropical world. These are the tiny parasites which cause the disease in man and mosquito, the deadly cycle of death and sickness.
The parasites have foiled all attempts to develop a vaccine against them, and are increasingly resistant to the drugs used to treat them. There is a desperate need for funding to find new drugs, but major pharmaceutical companies have largely turned their backs on a market where the victims have no money.
Beware! We are the four horsemenâs greatest ally. Global warming may bring them back as killers to the temperate world, in which we, the complacent wealthy, have taken our
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