On 27 August 2017, a 31-year-old man gets on a minibus for a clattering ride through Central Madagascar. He has been ill for four days with a fever and shivering attacks. Suddenly he gets worse. He coughs, is short of breath, and gasps for air. Before he reaches his destination, he has died in his seat.
The man’s family grieves and takes the body to the closest hospital for a funeral service. A few days later, 31 of the guests get ill – four of them fatally. Two of the man’s fellow passengers on the bus also die in a similar manner. And as a third passenger death occurs, doctors finally realise what is happening: plague has broken out in Madagascar. Over the course of three months 2417 people become infected, and 209 lose their lives.
The epidemic demonstrates that
