Just been reading a briefing by Prof Lyndsey Davies, who I used to know as our regional director of public health, now advising HMG.

We cannot rely on it dying out as it has in the past, but the impetus to find a vaccine or other protection is far greater now. Drug companies have better incentive to get there. Interesting point.

Far too late for some and the combination of commercial indifference to third world health issues combined with religious interference (HIV retrovirals kill you, inoculations are a route for genocide etc) are a huge issue and the realisation of the globalisation of these issues is getting complacent interests to sit up.

It isn't just Africa. Tuberculosis was becoming rare here, yet the multi drug resistant strain has led to far more negative pressure side rooms in hospitals being fitted, a crude but telling statistic. We are global, his problems are our problems.