Open Heart: Second Year {On Halt}

Chapter 7-Departmental Secrets

Two days passed smoothly.

On the third day morning, I woke before dawn broke in the sky and carried out morning business before jumping on the bed, and rummaged through nearly about fifty journals I had managed to bring last night.

It was a wise suggestion to go through the latest papers published by not only doctors but research scholars, post-doctorate experimentation, new discoveries made on the medicine sector as well as diseases found in various corners of the globe. I ordered monthly issues from several esteemed magazines but when I sought the weekly ones, I found them readily expensive. Thankfully, that problem was solved as those journals already decorated the shelves of the Diagnostics Department and nobody batted a lash when I took them home.

Finance was no longer a problem anymore for me. All the student loans were cleared by that 200K cheque my mother had given me a few months ago during the night of my hearing. I was angry upon her because I thought she was ceding me pity and charity but instead, she explained that this was my money as after my father passed away, I would become the heiress of my family's legacy hospital- Turner Memorial. I stalled my mother upon that decision because I wanted to complete my residency first and later, my PhD somewhere which wasn't my own hospital. Mom had agreed that she would carry on the governance and directorial work till I joined.

I knew I would join there eventually. That was what everyone wanted...even Sylvan thought as well. But there were so many things prior to that.

A review paper caught my attention and I began reading it. It was a titled as, 'Emerging infectious diseases and their zoonotic origin are proving to be the challenge of this decade'. The abstract granted my full focus there:

"Consuming or owning exotic animals can propose unexpected and dangerous health risks. Approximately three quarters of wildlife diseases are vector-borne viral zoonotic diseases. These diseases are complex infections residing in humans and can be transmitted as well. Diseases spread through direct contact methods which are regarded as the most dangerous method of mitigation. While there have been several zoonotic diseases identified, as of current date they are completely untreated and unvaccinated. Driving vaccines from the contact source is difficult. Disease like African Trypanosomiasis nearly has a mortality rate of 94%. Worst outcome is virgin soil epidemics where the devastating effects rise with no preceding exposure. This review covers the risks of such infectious diseases keeping the now recent cluster of pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China which is said to have originated at a wet market in accordance."

I remembered the news which Sienna had shown me and most of the doctors believed in Edenbrook that it was rather a seasonal endemic which would go off after its course. I began reading the introduction of the review paper,

"The first confirmed patient started experiencing symptoms on 1 December 2019. Although the first confirmed patient did not have any exposure to , an outbreak of the virus began among the people who had been exposed to the market nine days later. However, the outbreak went unnoticed until a cluster of unknown pneumonia was observed, seventy percent of them having traced to the wet market. This indicated that this mysterious pneumonia was possibly contracted from the bush meat which was abundant sold. By the end of December, more cases began arriving which led the authorities to intervene and on 1st January the news was made public and the market was closed down for investigation.

This fact remains affirmed to several past cases, for example- 2014 West African Ebola Virus Disease was traced to the index case which lived in close proximity of African Free-tailed bats which are natural reservoirs for this virus. As it spread from village to village, several flare ups led it to become the worst outbreak of EVD in history.