There is a particular kind of morning that belongs only to lecture theatres in university towns — warm, unhurried, smelling faintly of chalk dust and ambition not yet tested by reality. It was on such a morning, twenty years ago, that we learned that Goliath was not a villain. He was a patient.There is a particular kind of morning that belongs only to lecture theatres in university towns — warm, unhurried, smelling faintly of chalk dust and ambition not yet tested by reality. It was on such a morning, twenty years ago, that we learned that Goliath was not a villain. He was a patient.
We were second-years, still young enough to be impressed by professors who arrived in their own cars. The foldable seats of the learning resource centre clicked and creaked as we shuffled in, dusting our spots with the quiet ceremony of people about to receive important knowledge. Notebooks were opened. Chatter softened. Outside, parked with the confidence of a man who had earned his reserved space in more institutions than this one would acknowledge, sat a white Mercedes G-Wagon — boxy, imposing, slightly vintage — like its owner.
In another university, he argued, he would have had a whole avenue named after him, leave alone a reserved parking. But for now, he had to contend with what was available. As the saying goes, “when the preferred is not available, the available becomes the preferred.”
Prof. Kihumbu Thairu was here to deliver a lecture in neurophysiology. Word went round that the good professor was a key advisor to the NARC government. He had honed his skills in the UK. He was never short of British anecdotes during his lectures — some with sharp political undertones. One regular theme was his role in founding KEMRI. He spoke of how the world watched HIV/AIDS spread like wildfire, its embers fanned by political talk of privacy and stigma. Prof. Thairu was clear on the science: you identify the infected, you isolate them and treat, and you only allow them back into the general public once they are deemed safe and non-infectious.
That morning, as he recalled the early eighties, he looked pained. The flip charts flipped with the breeze seeping through the crevice in the door. He had just finished drawing an annotated diagram to make his point. He had an effortless habit of showing off his ambidexterity. On that day, he wrote with his left hand and drew with his right. Same flip chart page, same concept, two hands.
“My idea,” he said — or something close — “was to isolate and quarantine all HIV patients. To ensure they did not infect the rest of the population.” But then, the issue of stigma was given priority. For the first time, the rights of the infected were placed above the safety of the innocent public. These were people who would unknowingly keep contracting the disease. The rest is history. It was, he declared, a failure of the scientific community.
I do not know how the circumstances were in the 1980s. I have not practised public health. But Prof. Thairu made his remarks with the conviction of a scientist ready to swear by the formula of his own discovery.
I have since forgotten the details of the physiology lesson Prof. Thairu taught us that morning. The class had been rescheduled several times to allow him to finish “a performance appraisal for a permanent secretary in the Kibaki government.” But this lesson stayed with me. He retold public health history with a passion built on the three pillars of Aristotle’s rhetoric — ethos, pathos, and logos.
In a previous class, he had done something I still remember. He linked the neurophysiology of gigantism to the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. Goliath, it turns out, was a neurological patient. He had a growth in the brain at the pituitary gland. This tumour did two things. It overproduced the hormone that turns a person into a giant. It also pressed on the nearby nerves, cutting off peripheral vision. Goliath could not see what came from the sides — a condition called bitemporal hemianopia. That is where David’s stone came from. It hit Goliath’s temple, the thinnest part of the skull. The poor man should not have been recruited into the army. He should have been sent to a neurologist. Sorry to spoil your next Sunday sermon.
Anyway, back to public health and epidemic management. Most authorities agree that containment is the first step. Once a disease is diagnosed, you quarantine the patient and hold until adequate treatment is available. That is the logical early response. It has not changed.
As soon as the Ebola virus disease outbreak was declared in the DRC, Kenya’s Ministry of Health issued directions on emergency preparedness and heightened alertness. In one publicly shared video, the government advised the public to “limit non-essential travel to minimise exposure.” The principle was clear: keep the disease away from your borders.
Then a spanner was thrown into the works. The USA announced it would not allow any infected US citizens to return home. Instead, they would be flown to Kenya for treatment. Call it reverse non-essential travel.
“The number one priority of our foreign policy is to protect the American people. We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States.” — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
I have listened to the PS and read the CS press release. Kenya has expertise and infrastructure. But a few things need saying. First, if our doctors have handled Ebola before, let those who are willing and fit travel to the DRC and treat at source. The DRC has a larger landmass than Kenya. It can easily host the kind of isolation facility the USA is planning here. We sent police to Haiti. We can send doctors to Congo.
Second, do you drive into an oncoming truck just because you have insurance? Our resources should be held for our own crises — fire tragedies, road accidents, and the rising cancer burden. Yes, the USA says it will fund this. But this is the same USA that cut funding for infectious disease programmes just a year ago. We can see through the “America First” lens. This is not generosity. It is self-preservation.
Third, what about the Kenyan grandmother with three pre-existing conditions? What about our frontline nurses? We lost medics during COVID-19 — not because the disease could not be managed, but because the gloves arrived late and the masks ran out. Emergencies require good infrastructure, trained staff, and supplies that arrive on time. You and I know how the “Middle East crisis” will be cited when nurses ask for personal protective equipment and get nothing back.
One can argue that patient zero will land on our soil eventually. Perhaps. But a day delayed in catching a disease with no known cure is a death deferred. It is a life prolonged. It is that simple.
I wonder what Prof. Thairu would say today. But there is one thing he, PS Oluga, and I would agree on: science. The same science that explained gigantism and Goliath’s blind spot can explain this choice too. What we need is the language of epidemiology and disease control — not diplospeak, the careful art of saying nothing while sounding decisive.
