Virus business

Ben Contreras

NATIONS, big and small, spend billions of dollars to develop new weaponry as long as they have the resources. Those that cannot afford just make do with purchasing from nations that have the best and the cheapest. In short, weapons are good business.

But there are other businesses that require a lot of investments on experiments and development, and medicines. They are the pharmaceutical giants.

I can’t recall which one came first, Ebola or Aids. But both were portrayed as deadly–so deadly that when one is inflicted with either one, it’s as good as goodbye to life. You were sure to die.

I and a few friends from school came to know about Aids through our classmate who is a doctor in the United States.

Aids, everyone knows, is Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome while HIV is Human Immuno Deficiency Virus. Initially, Aids was getting a lot of mileage, how deadly it is and when a person is positive of HIV, the chance of dying is almost certain.

Then came treatment, expensive medicines and protracted processes. Good if you have the money, otherwise, start counting your days. But after a few decades, we know of some personalities allegedly found HIV positive still alive. Sexually transmitted, they said. Well again, did we ever hear of their wives or husbands inflicted with it? Or have they stopped having sex? Today, it’s not even being talked about.

Ebola is an airborne virus that could kill human beings in a matter of seconds or minutes when inflicted with the virus. A movie was made of it. Judging from it and its deadliness, no human beings should have survived by now.

Then we had “Sars” or the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. the Asian Flu. The world was so scared that nations were in frantic mood to get the vaccines. The Philippines was one of them. When the Department of Health announced the acquisition of the vaccine, the news died down and it was hardly mentioned anymore.

Dengue has always been with us especially during rainy seasons. A vaccine is said to have been discovered and is now available. Would that be the end of dengue? Not at all, because like firearms, there is a need for a new virus, too, to keep their business going.

“Zika” it is! It came from the Zika Forest of Uganda. Ebola came from a monkey somewhere in an African country. Like dengue, Zika virus is spread by mosquitoes.

Until we learn to live with the name Zika just as we had with dengue, there will come a time when a vaccine would be discovered and sold worldwide. Then another invention enters the scene.

It’s a cruel cycle of deceit imposed on hapless humanity by pharmaceutical giants and with some government leaders cooperating in the promotion of these viruses and at the same time make money with.

What the heck! Zika sounds like Zilka, a local soap. It’s has to not reached its peak. But when it does, I hope this administration will not buy the story outright.

Let me end this with a joke. Aids made a lot of wives happy and condoms sell. As for Zika, let’s Zika minutes!