Miasma

Author’s Note

Although MIASMA is a work of fiction, several facts have been employed in its writing.

In May of 2018, The Democratic Republic of Congo announced an outbreak of Ebola virus in Equateur Province — the ninth to occur since 1976. Unlike the West African outbreak, which claimed over 11,000 lives between 2014 and 2016, this new epidemic was unexpectedly declared over in mid-July of 2018.

Almost unbelievably, a new epidemic was announced at the beginning of August 2018 in another area of the country — Kivu Province, a wild. lawless area some five hundred miles to the east, plagued by violence and banditry — it had to be classified as a new outbreak rather than possible late spread of the old one because genetic analysis showed the cause to be a new strain of Ebola virus, the so-called Zaire strain.

The official explanation for continual outbreaks of Ebola in DRC blames the diet of the population, which includes fruit bats, the suspected natural host of the virus and animals subject to bites from these creatures — collectively known as ‘bushmeat’. As yet, there is limited scientific evidence to support this theory.

2018 has seen several news stories appear about rogue members of world aid agencies exploiting vulnerable people in the course of their duties. Naturally, it is hoped that these people are few and far between, but this does require vigorous investigation. It is not difficult to imagine that access to hundreds of thousands of displaced, vulnerable people could be an attractive ‘resource’ to organised crime.

At the other end of the scale from displaced vulnerable people we have an increasing number of wealthy people wishing to set up home in the UK — particularly in London and often Russian — with effects on property prices and constant suspicions of money laundering. At the time of writing, having assets of ten million pounds or more is sufficient to obtain an ‘investment visa’, leading to permanent residence after only two years.