A-Infos (en) Paranoia as a Survival Trait

["Dave Cull" <dcull@island.net>]

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My apologies about what may at first seem an off-topic posting. On the
surface this is yet another confirmation of the onrushing consequences of
climate change. But, on the assumption that one subtext of this group is
digging up the nefarious activities of the Military-Industrial Complex, read
the paragraph in this week's Guardian article I have highlighted. Anyone
else remember when we were called "crazies" for suggesting such research
existed?
 

Kenya revisited by the plague

Global climate change is spawning deadly epidemics. Fred Pearce reports on
how unseasonal rainfall has brought terror to Kenya

For the second time in six months, the world is glimpsing the health
consequences of escalating climate change. After triggering the choking
havoc of smoke from Indonesian forest fires last autumn, the worst El Ni¤o
for 50 years has in the past two months unleashed plagues of disease across
east Africa in the wake of unprecedented dry-season rains and floods.
Cholera and malaria have claimed record numbers of victims across Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia. Pests, such as a toxic insect known as the
Nairobi fly, have proliferated. Locusts may be on the way. But most
frightening of all comes an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever, a cattle disease
that has decimated herds across eastern Kenya and southern Somalia and
jumped the species barrier to kill hundreds of humans. It attacks with such
ferocity that medics at first feared an outbreak of anthrax, and now
speculate that they may have seen the emergence of a new super-strain of the
virus that could take permanent residence in humans.
Rains in parts of Kenya in the past month have been 20 times normal. El
Ni¤o, a climatic convulsion in the Pacific, has warped tropical weather
fronts around the globe and left a band of intense rain, known as the
inter-tropical convergence zone, over the country for weeks on end.
News reports in Kenya have concentrated on floods in Nairobi and the
severing of the country's main highway to Mombasa. But the real havoc has
been caused in the northeast -- a vast, normally arid land of cattle herders
which has effectively been cut off by floods for more than two months now.
Just before Christmas, news began to filter out of thousands of cattle
deaths and a mysterious "bleeding disease" among humans. Louise Martin, an
American disease consultant with the World Health Organisation in Nairobi,
first flew out to the stricken villages on Christmas Eve with helicopters
bringing food aid.
This latterday Santa Claus mission found the children were not sleeping
quietly in their beds. "They were living, huddled with their animals, on
small patches of dry land. They had no clean water and little food except
for their diseased animals," recalls Martin.
Victims of the bleeding disease, at first concentrated in the districts of
Garissa and Wajir, were struck down literally overnight. They became
delirious, began bleeding from ears, nose and mouth and died within hours.
"I watched one 14-year-old girl, the same age as my own daughter, dying
before my eyes," says Martin.
Samples of blood collected by Martin and analysed in South Africa and Kenya
revealed the Rift Valley Fever virus in both animals and humans. Last month
the International Red Cross said the virus had killed "more than 450 people"
so far and remained out of control. With dozens of settlements in the
flooded region still not contacted, Martin refuses to be drawn on the death
toll. Some suggest several thousand may be dead. And things could be even
worse over the border in Somalia, a land without any form of central government.
The disease has invaded a rural population without medical help and already
severely weakened by malnutrition, TB, malaria and a range of parasitic
diseases. The death rate from the disease appeared to be around 50 per cent
in humans and even higher in animals. 
"One family I met had a herd of 200 goats one week, and only four left the
next," recalls Martin.
The virus spreads among animals via mosquitoes, rather like malaria. But,
according to John Githule, human disease specialist at the International
Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) at Kasarani, outside
Nairobi, transmission is much faster. 
The disease was first identified in 1931 in the Rift Valley in Kenya --
hence its name. Until now, the largest known outbreak in humans was in Egypt
during floods in 1977, when 600 people died. Some researchers have suggested
the virus could have been responsible for Biblical plagues in Egypt.
Humans, like animals, can be infected via mosquitoes. "The mosquitoes prefer
to bite livestock, but will bite humans as a second best," says Donald
Klaucke, the WHO's acting head in Nairobi. But he believes that human
epidemics are largely caused by eating infected meat. Either way, with
humans and animals huddled together against the floods, animal carcasses the
only available food, and standing water causing an explosion in the numbers
of mosquito, the people of northeastern Kenya are a sitting target.
The Kenyan government, only recently getting back to work after the December
elections, appears uninterested in the crisis. The country's most respected
newspaper, the Nation, complained last month that the government had yet to
broadcast even basic advice to affected villages on how to minimise their
risk of catching the disease. The Red Cross claimed the army had refused to
provide helicopters to reach the stricken zone.
On January 14, at a meeting with the health ministry, Martin and WHO
officials recommended immediate vaccination to prevent further spread of the
disease among livestock. The Red Cross agreed. With the country holding
stocks of vaccine for 300,000 animals there need have been no delay. But 10
days later, with reports of the disease spreading west and south, reaching
the Magadi district just 50km from Nairobi, no decision on vaccination had
been taken, says Martin.
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NOTE THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH
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Despite initial reports to the contrary, there is a human vaccine. It was
developed secretly by the United States army in 1967 as part of experiments
into the use of tropical diseases as biological weapons. The vaccine is
offered to laboratory staff working with the disease, but according to
Klaucke, has never been licensed for wider use. "The matter is a bit
sensitive," says a US army spokesman, without elaborating.
Whatever its original motivation, military research into exotic diseases
could prove increasingly valuable. Hans Herren, director of Icipe, is in no
doubt that remote regions such as northeastern Kenya could act as reservoirs
for exotic diseases that could suddenly break out of their existing
ecological niches because of changing climate. In effect, humans could
inadvertently unleash biological warfare on themselves.
"Global warming will lead to vectors such as mosquitoes spreading to new
areas and becoming more active," says Herren. Who knows what they may bring
with them. Such epidemics may happen suddenly. And with many governments in
Africa and elsewhere imploding, crippled by corruption and unable to keep
either roads or hospitals open for business, the conditions for the return
of major epidemics and the incubation of diseases new to humanity could
hardly be better.

The Guardian Weekly Volume 158 Issue 6 for week ending February 8, 1998, Page 
27

Michael D. Wallace
Department of Political Science
University of British Columbia
phone:(604)822-4550, fax:822-5540

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