“Call from Bangkok, Joseph. Dr Pradit.
Joseph Musa had just arrived in his office. He dropped his briefcase on his desk, lifted the phone, and immediately recognised the voice of Pradit the WHO Southeast Asia regional director.
“Pradit, good morning,” Musa said.
As usual, Pradit sounded breathless. “Ah, Joseph,” he said. “I’m in ah Bangkok. We’ve got more information on the respiratory outbreak.
It’s truck drivers.”
“Truck drivers?”
“Yes. All except one of the cases were truck drivers delivering watermelons to a fruit market.”
Perhaps Musa had been up late the night before, but he first tried to imagine a fruit market and then asked himself why cases often sounded so bizarre? “Are you saying there is a link with watermelons, Pradit?”
“No, no, no. The link is the fruit market. It’s near the bus terminal and train station, ah. Always very crowded.”
“So why truck drivers and not bus and train passengers?”
“Good question.”
“You mean, you don’t know yet?”
“Yes. I mean no. They are looking at where they park the trucks.
They, ah, they drive at night and sleep in the daytime. They sleep in the big shed where ah the watermelons are sorted. It has air conditioning.”
“So, the air conditioning?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“But what about the single female case?”
“She was sleeping with one of the drivers, we think.”
Musa held his head. “So, what is the conclusion?”
“We don’t know, but they found something by the door of the big shed.”
“What?”
“Inhalers, like the ones used by people with asthma. Made of blue plastic with a mouthpiece. They have miniature pressurised cylinder containing a drug-like salbutamol. One or two puffs, asthma attack gone.”
“Are they testing these . . . these inhalers?”
“Yes and no. They don’t have the cylinder, just the blue plastic part.
You understand what I’m talking about, Joseph?”
“My son uses one,” Joseph said. “How many inhalers?”
“Two in a box big enough to hold ten or twenty but no label and no marks. Perhaps they can trace them back to the manufacturer, but that would involve the police and, anyway, perhaps no connection with the deaths. I just thought you should know.”
Musa, though, was distracted by a fresh file om his desk.
‘ Technological Innovations for Anaemia Prevention Programme, ’ it said. “Thanks, Pradit,” he said. Then he opened the file on anaemia and forgot about it.