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Eleven hours on an airplane were more than enough but Wesley Williams still had nearly three hours before he landed at Addis Ababa International in Ethiopia. He had tried to sleep but he could only achieve an hour or two at a time. In between his naps, he studied the case book prepared for him.
Wesley was a researcher at the National Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, USA. He had been sent to Juba, South Sudan at the request of a doctor with the Doctors International Outreach (DIO) organization to investigate what seemed to be a new viral outbreak.
Wesley hadn't any idea where the state of South Sudan was until he was well on his way to Africa. The layover in Addis Ababa would allow Wesley to do some advance scouting. But for now, he went back to sleep.
Wesley awoke as the plane touched down. He was soon in the main concourse of Addis Ababa International. Except for the occasional sign a traveler might never know where he was in the world. The airport was as modern as any Wesley had ever seen. He queried his Annie as to the location of his hotel in Juba, where the Ministry of Health was located and where the DIO clinic was located. The clinic was his main objective while staying in the capital city. The Annie was slow to respond. Obviously, the cloud connection was limited. By the time it was finishing with his request Wesley was dozing off again.
He awoke in time to hear the call for his flight. The plane was an older prop model, and he had to walk across the tarmac and climb the boarding steps. By the time the plane was in the air, he had dozed off again to the sound of the propeller engines.
The bumpy landing which woke him was an immediate indication that things would be different in Juba. Departing the plane Wesley noticed that he was surrounded by United Nations, World Food Program, and Russian cargo jets parked in a close jumble because of the limited size of the apron. It was obvious that foreign aid and foreign influence was still important to South Sudan even after years of independence.
If Wesley thought the parking apron small the room, he found himself in for visa check, baggage collection, customs and passport control was about the size of a large living room in the United States. It was crowded, hot and chaotic. Somewhere to the side, he saw his name on a sign. He motioned to the young man to meet him in the middle of the crush of people.
The young man had been sent by DIO and was to take Wesley to his motel but first, they had to get him through customs. He led Wesley to the visa window where there didn't seem to be a queue. Passport, entry permit and a crisp American hundred dollar note and they were off to retrieve the luggage. After some shoving, loud arguing in English, Dinka and Nuer with a smattering of Arabic pidgin, the luggage was retrieved.
Wesley by now was impressed with the young man's skills and followed him to the customs area. There both bags were opened, actually spilled onto a table, searched and then chalked, apparently meeting with the custom officer's approval, Wesley was allowed to repack his bags after another hundred dollar bill exchanged hands.
Now it was a fight to get to the immigration official who checked Wesley's passport and the chalked luggage again and accepted a hundred dollar “tip,” before allowing him to move into the arrivals area. Once Wesley found his baggage tag from Addis Ababa, he was allowed to leave the one-room terminal.
Outside the terminal, the young man found his motorbike where he had left it chained. He looked relieved to find the bike in order. As they had a moment the young man introduced himself.
"I am Kamal Cham Dr. Williams, I will be your guide during your stay here in Juba," he said in almost perfect English.
"I am very glad to meet you Kamal," said Wesley. "I really am impressed with your expertise in guiding me through that ordeal."
"I have done it many times."
"I have to ask though, to whom do I owe the three hundred dollars?"
"Do not worry Dr. Williams. It is the cost of doing business here. Dr. Petiot will charge it against expenses. Shall we go now?"
"Yes," said Wesley.
They put Wesley's bags in the small cart attached to the back of the motorbike. Wesley climbed on to the rear of the extra-long seat. The seat was long enough for several people as Wesley confirmed by noticing other boda-bodas with three to four people climbing onto them. The ride to the Panorama Hotel was just over a mile distant.
Kamal left Wesley at the front desk after making arrangements to pick him up early in the morning for the trip to the Ministry of Health where Wesley would present himself as a courtesy to the authorities. Wesley had a quick bite to eat in the hotel's restaurant and retired to his room, which unlike the ordeal of the flight and Juba airport, wasn't that bad.
Wesley took out his Annie and unfolded it. He asked for the weather for tomorrow in Juba. The Annie cautioned that connections to the cloud were very tenuous, it might take a while for it to fulfill his request. Wesley told his Annie that it could go offline, and he would check in the morning for the answer. He quickly washed and went to bed.
The following morning, after leaving the Ministry of Health, Kamal and Wesley were on their way to the DIO clinic. So far Juba, except for its awful connection to the cloud, had not been too far out of the ordinary for Wesley. The streets were paved, trees though not plentiful lined some blocks, but this was about to change.
Kamal turned onto a side street west of the Ministry and headed south. The character of the buildings began to change. They looked older and worse kept than what Wesley had previously seen. Then as Kamal turned west again the pavement ended and the street became dusty red dirt. The bike kicked at the ruts and Wesley held on to the seat. They finally arrived at the clinic which was not much different than the surrounding buildings except for the sign and the fresh coat of white-wash which was quickly becoming red-tinged from the ground up.
Dr. Petiot, a small man in a white smock, came out to greet them.
"Welcome Dr. Williams," he said with a slight French accent. "And thank you Kamal, for bringing our guest safely. How are you Dr. Williams? Is there anything I can get for you, such as food?"
"No thank you Dr. Petiot," said Wesley. "And please call me Wesley."
"And you shall call me Jacques."
"Very good. As you know I have only a day to investigate your request and obtain any samples I might need. Are we prepared to tour the facilities?"
"Of course, follow me please."
The clinic was well maintained and seemed to be properly supplied, though it would have been considered primitive in Europe or the States. Dr. Petiot took Wesley immediately to the corridor that housed the suspect patients.
"At this time, we have about a dozen patients with the same symptoms," said Dr. Petiot. "As I stated in my request to the CDC the symptoms start with a headache and burning eyes. This gives way to fever and disturbed sleep. In the worse cases, they begin to drift in and out of consciousness, complaining of muscle aches and their head throbbing. If we are unable to stop the disease's progression their face will start to change color to a darkish purple-brown. Soon they begin coughing up blood and eventually gasp for air as they drown, their lungs overwhelmed with bloody fluid. We have lost eleven out of the twenty-six patients we've treated."
"Certainly sounds like a virus," said Wesley. "In the terminal cases, how long does it take to run its course?"
"Anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six hours."
"Really! That fast?"
"Yes, and it is usually the young healthy patients that go quickly. That should sound familiar."
"Yes, it does. Just like the last viral outbreak a few years ago. Except the time from contracting the illness to death has been compressed."
"Yes, and this viral outbreak doesn't seem as contagious, thank goodness," said Dr. Petiot.
Wesley spent the rest of the day visiting with patients and the other doctors and nurses at the clinic. He used his Annie and sensor attachments to make a preliminary investigation of blood, tissue and fluids from the infected patients. The difficulty of getting a good cloud connection prevented the Annie from making a quick diagnosis but a virus was definitely the main suspect. The clinic's technicians, under Wesley's supervision, prepared further samples for him to take back to the CDC for testing.
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