Malaria, Poems

Vaccine

34 VACCINE “An effective vaccine has been 5 years around the corner for the last 50 or 500 years.” — researcher from Cambridge University The white door has a sensor on the floor that gauges the distance of my foot and opens, as they tell me, accordingly, and the door shuts airtight with a hiss, which it also has a sensor for, and just before this they told me about how vaccine comes from the late 18th century and comes from the Latin vaccinus, from vacca or cow, because of the use of the cowpox virus against smallpox, and then they told me how malaria is a contraction of the Italian mala and aria, which means bad air, because people once believed it was caused by the unwholesome air around swamps, and they told me to remember that in tropical theaters of war malaria has killed more men than mortar round. I didn’t respond verbally to any of this because my own senses were distracted as my feet stuck to tape on the floor so they could be disinfected and a vacuum lowered from the ceiling and swept over my clothes and hair though my head is shaved. I step through the next door, and this door I’m told costs fifteen dollars Every. Single. Time. It. Opens because I have to wear a special astronaut-grade suit that must be immediately thrown away as soon as I exit. I suit up and walk through this door, and when I hear the hiss of closing I see I am facing a third white door, and this one has a small double-paneled window like on an airplane, and I’m told it is military-grade. What’s on the other side is blurry, but I see scientists in white lab coats, and I see the smudge of their many skin colors, and I see steel dry ice tanks, which I’m told the world’s best submarines use, and then I’m told I can go no further, that this is the absolute limit, that I’m lucky to get this far because they don’t even allow scientists from other institutions to go this far because they may steal secrets, and then I’m told that I’m free and, after a pause to clear their throat, that I’m free to watch, and as the putty shapes move and hand each other things and open things, I begin to feel trapped, though I’m free to watch, and I begin to feel my own sensors firing, though they’re not military grade, and they’re telling me that although solutions may be on the other side of the blur, I am far closer to the problems. 35 “There has never been a vaccine for a parasitic disease.” — Bill Gates at the Malaria Forum, 2011 “British vaccine breakthrough will save millions from malaria” — title of an article in The Telegraph, 18 August 2002 “Malaria Vaccine Is Near, U.S. Health Officials Say” — title of an article in The New York Times, 3 August 1984 ...