Medicine: Killer on the Loose

At the border between Kenya and the Sudan, soldiers with submachine guns halt all traffic, including nomadic herdsmen who usually cross at will with their goats and sheep. In neighboring Zaire, alarmed officials seal off part of their northern frontier. At airports in Africa and Europe, passengers suddenly find themselves subjected to unusual scrutiny and occasional detention. These grim security measures are aimed not at halting some new eruption of guerrilla terror but at containing a possibly greater menace: a killer fever that has been spreading ominously in equatorial Africa, causing as many...

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