us and we’re talking about a fifty percent kill rate with Variola major .
‘As much as that?’
And that doesn’t mean to say the other fifty percent get better like nothing ever happened. More often than not it leaves the survivors brain damaged, sometimes mad, often blind, always disfigured. If you come out of it with only a face that looks like you stood in front of a grenade when it went off you can count yourself a very lucky person indeed.’
‘It’s that bad?’
‘The worst.’
‘You’ve actually experienced it in the field then?’
‘1975, Somalia. I was with the WHO team who encircled the last outbreak. Like Apaches round a wagon train we were, closing in for the kill, vaccinating everything that moved so the disease couldn’t spread out from its epicentre.’
‘It must have given you a tremendous sense of achievement when you finally realised that you’d actually done it, wiped out a disease that’s plagued man throughout recorded history and probably before that.’
‘Damn right. Me and a few others, mainly Americans, got pie-eyed for a week but you know, it hardly made the papers back here.’
‘Really?’
‘People in this country had already forgotten what smallpox could do. By that time it was something that happened in far off lands. If we’d wiped out something that affected Cheltenham it might have been a different story but Africa? Bottom of page five if we were lucky. Until of course, the accident happened.’
‘Accident?’
‘Birmingham. Everyone thought it was okay to work on the virus under lab conditions. After all, you know exactly where the virus is at all times in the lab. Glass containers are much more predictable than human beings; they don’t cough, spit, throw up over you or bugger off to Majorca when they feel like it. We didn’t have the fancy containment facilities they have today and all the rules and regulations to go with it but we were still pretty careful in our own way. Each lab did its best; some were better than others of course. It was up to individual consultants to impose their own rules but Birmingham was a lesson to us all.
The damn thing got out of what everyone thought was a secure lab. It killed a woman medical photographer almost before we knew it and you know what the worst thing was? To this day we don’t know what really went wrong. We don’t know how it got out.’
Dewar was picking up a lot from Wright. The man was just talking conversationally but he found himself already developing a more than healthy respect for the virus.
‘After that there was no more working in hospital labs and the like with live smallpox. Thank God, there could have been many more accidents.’
‘ My information is that there are only two places on earth that are allowed to store live smallpox?’ said Dewar.
‘ That’s right, Atlanta and Koltsovo although some pessimists think it still might be viable in corpses of people who died of the disease.’
‘ You’re kidding,’ said Dewar.
‘ I’m not talking about bodies that have undergone normal decomposition,’ said Wright. ‘I’m talking about bodies subject to special environmental conditions. It’s been suggested that the permafrost regions of Russia might still harbour live smallpox in bodies buried there nearly a hundred years ago. The ground conditions would be just right.’
‘ Requiescat in pace ,’ said Dewar.
‘ Amen to that,’ agreed Wright.
‘I’m told the entire smallpox genome has been DNA sequenced,’ said Dewar.
‘That’s right. We know every last base pair of its evil little self. A string of letters you can’t even make a word out of and it’s killed millions.’
‘Does that mean you could actually build it in the lab if you wanted?’
Wright smiled as if recognising the real reason for Dewar’s interest. ‘Who in their right mind would want to do that?’ he asked innocently.
‘I didn’t say anything about right mind.’
‘Point taken. No, there are
‘As much as that?’
And that doesn’t mean to say the other fifty percent get better like nothing ever happened. More often than not it leaves the survivors brain damaged, sometimes mad, often blind, always disfigured. If you come out of it with only a face that looks like you stood in front of a grenade when it went off you can count yourself a very lucky person indeed.’
‘It’s that bad?’
‘The worst.’
‘You’ve actually experienced it in the field then?’
‘1975, Somalia. I was with the WHO team who encircled the last outbreak. Like Apaches round a wagon train we were, closing in for the kill, vaccinating everything that moved so the disease couldn’t spread out from its epicentre.’
‘It must have given you a tremendous sense of achievement when you finally realised that you’d actually done it, wiped out a disease that’s plagued man throughout recorded history and probably before that.’
‘Damn right. Me and a few others, mainly Americans, got pie-eyed for a week but you know, it hardly made the papers back here.’
‘Really?’
‘People in this country had already forgotten what smallpox could do. By that time it was something that happened in far off lands. If we’d wiped out something that affected Cheltenham it might have been a different story but Africa? Bottom of page five if we were lucky. Until of course, the accident happened.’
‘Accident?’
‘Birmingham. Everyone thought it was okay to work on the virus under lab conditions. After all, you know exactly where the virus is at all times in the lab. Glass containers are much more predictable than human beings; they don’t cough, spit, throw up over you or bugger off to Majorca when they feel like it. We didn’t have the fancy containment facilities they have today and all the rules and regulations to go with it but we were still pretty careful in our own way. Each lab did its best; some were better than others of course. It was up to individual consultants to impose their own rules but Birmingham was a lesson to us all.
The damn thing got out of what everyone thought was a secure lab. It killed a woman medical photographer almost before we knew it and you know what the worst thing was? To this day we don’t know what really went wrong. We don’t know how it got out.’
Dewar was picking up a lot from Wright. The man was just talking conversationally but he found himself already developing a more than healthy respect for the virus.
‘After that there was no more working in hospital labs and the like with live smallpox. Thank God, there could have been many more accidents.’
‘ My information is that there are only two places on earth that are allowed to store live smallpox?’ said Dewar.
‘ That’s right, Atlanta and Koltsovo although some pessimists think it still might be viable in corpses of people who died of the disease.’
‘ You’re kidding,’ said Dewar.
‘ I’m not talking about bodies that have undergone normal decomposition,’ said Wright. ‘I’m talking about bodies subject to special environmental conditions. It’s been suggested that the permafrost regions of Russia might still harbour live smallpox in bodies buried there nearly a hundred years ago. The ground conditions would be just right.’
‘ Requiescat in pace ,’ said Dewar.
‘ Amen to that,’ agreed Wright.
‘I’m told the entire smallpox genome has been DNA sequenced,’ said Dewar.
‘That’s right. We know every last base pair of its evil little self. A string of letters you can’t even make a word out of and it’s killed millions.’
‘Does that mean you could actually build it in the lab if you wanted?’
Wright smiled as if recognising the real reason for Dewar’s interest. ‘Who in their right mind would want to do that?’ he asked innocently.
‘I didn’t say anything about right mind.’
‘Point taken. No, there are
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