Headline, March 05 2021/ ''' '' PROFESSOR : VIRUSES PRESCIENT '' ''' : ACT 1 - SCENE 1

''' '' PROFESSOR : VIRUSES 

PRESCIENT '' ''' : ACT 1 - SCENE 1

ACT 1 : SCENE ONE : '' THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS '' : Author of Global Literature at the University of York, Professor Claire Chambers :

THE EPIDEMIC IS PORTRAYED AS PART of the poor's inescapable lot. Not for them is hope of rescue, which is reserved for foreign others:

'' Helicopters landed with decorum in an expatriate's back garden, there on a so-called humanitarian mission to extricate all those far from their home country, the people who had never been in any way Ebola's victims.

The intrepid explorers clambered on board, thinking how the little-run-in with with a third world epidemic was all part of the adventure.''

EBOLA IS A VIRAL INFECTION WHICH causes hemorrhagic fever. Though rare, it has been devastating in the west, central and sub-Saharan Africa. The virus gives sufferers a temperature, head and muscle aches, a sore throat or a stomach upset.

This can lead to bleeding and organ failure. Transmission is by close contact with fluids from a symptomatic person, it is also possible to catch Ebola from animals including fruit bats.

The virus contains single-stranded ribonucleic acid [RNA] as do the common cold and SARS CoV-2. RNA is a string of genetic code that implants into the host's cells, reproducing itself and killing the cells.

There is no vaccine cure for Ebola, and it is often fatal, with a death rate estimated at 40-60 percent.

Sudanese author and doctor Amir Tag Elsir, wrote Ebola '76 in 2012. Three years later, amid the 2014 - 2016 Ebola crisis, this prescient novel was translated from Arabic to English. In it, as the title suggests, Elsir looks back at one of the first known outbreaks of Ebola.

The disease struck the Democratic Republic of the Congo [ then called Zaire ] from August 1976 onwards.

It was subsequently named for the country's Ebola River. However, the virus was thought to have been brought to the Congo by a labourer from the region of Nazara in South Sudan.

In an an article on this Ebola outbreak for the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Joel Bremen at al note that ''persons afflicted in Nzara worked in a cotton factory at which many bats were hanging from the rafters.''

This origin story affords Elsir the opportunity to imagine one textiles worker and the super-spreader, whom he names Lewis Lewis Nawa. In the unhealthy environment of a cotton factory, Lewis seats for a former rebel called James Riyyak. Riyyak had emerged from jungle insurgency years earlier to transmute into a ruthless entrepreneur.

Facing this crisis for health and the economy, he pivots to disaster capitalism and the production of masks. In order to appeal to the locals' superstitions, he even claims these ''Riyyak Masks'' have talismanic properties.

ACT 1 ; SCENE 1 : ''The Voice Of The Voiceless''

Unlike these protected outsiders, Lewis has no means to be lifted out of danger. He falls ill with the disease. Like all the stricken, he has a ''deathbed awakening'', in which he spews dirty secrets. Lewis' confession is that he has committed adultery with two women.

Embarrassingly, he goes on to recover. This does not stay awkward for long, though, as he soon loses both wife and girlfriend to the virus The Congolese sex worker he frequented also dies, murdered by a client in Kinshasa before the Ebola in her bloodstream can get her.

Sexual and physical violence against women is laconically described, and is clearly commonplace. Moreover, both men and women confront abject poverty, exploitation and reactionary customs.

Ebola is personified as an evil sorcerer laughing gleefully as it enters its helpless victims' bodies.

The Sadness of this Latest Global Operational Research on Ebola and Viruses, continues to Act 2 - Scene 2. The World Students Society thanks most profoundly, author Professor Claire Chambers.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

''' Teach - Times '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless