DAVID E BRATT, MD

So yes, boy! There is a new play­er in town. Chikun­guy­na gone, Ebo­la fever tak­ing over T&T! Name fad­der! Ebo­la!

More prop­er­ly known as Ebo­la vi­ral dis­ease or Ebo­la haem­or­rhag­ic fever, but not for the pub­lic. No­body knows who Ed­son Arantes do Nasci­men­to is, but every­one knows Pele.

The name comes from where the dis­ease was first record­ed in 1976 in Yam­buku, a small vil­lage in the north­ern part of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go, which lies on the Ebo­la Riv­er. It could well have been called Yam­bu­ki fever. Why not? Yam­bu­ki! "I have Yam­bu­ki fever!" Wheep­a­paoh! Dis­ease, boy!

The Ebo­la Riv­er is ac­tu­al­ly the head­stream of the Mon­gala Riv­er, a trib­u­tary of the Con­go, the sec­ond largest riv­er in the world, af­ter the Ama­zon, by vol­ume of wa­ter dis­charged.

Yes, man! Ebo­la! Yam­bu­ki! Mon­gala! Bolobo! Names to stir the blood of any Trinida­di­an male over 60 who used to go 12.30 to watch Hol­ly­wood movies like King Solomon's Mines and She.

Every­one in T&T is very ex­cit­ed about Ebo­la fever. The Min­is­ter of Health, be­fore he went on hol­i­day, told every­body that his min­istry was "ful­ly pre­pared to deal with an out­break of Ebo­la." Var­i­ous let­ter-writ­ers have re­spond­ed to that fatu­ous as­ser­tion bet­ter than I can.