Page 35 - Unlikely Stories 4

The Vaccinators

To: District Officer, Kachamungee
From: F. Needby, M.D., F.R.C.S.

Subject: Third contact with previously unknown Ndarfn tribe

This account serves as my official report of what I encountered in
August, 1973 during my investigation of the disappearance of Dr.
Plompkin. His account of the discovery of an isolated group of
Ndarfn people living deep in the rainforest while on a medical
mission is on file and, I presume, well known to the public at this
point. I shall summarize it here.
The ictovirus epidemic raging through the country’s interior earlier
this year prompted our government to initiate a vaccination program
designed to reach every vulnerable group, particularly those without
much, if any, prior exposure to the infectious diseases now endemic
in the world. Dr. Plompkin, a respected member of our Ministry of
Public Health emergency response team, was assigned to a sector of
the Ndarfn people’s protected territory. He was accompanied by a
small contingent of urbanized Ndarfn able to serve as guides and
interpreters.
After two weeks in the bush the group stumbled upon an enclave
of Ndarfn not on any maps, and not recognized by Plompkin’s
indigenous assistants. It consisted of one extended family, speaking a
pure form of Ndar lacking any foreign loan-words. They had not
seen a white man before, and it took some time for their curiosity to
overcome their fear. They knew what ictovirus was, however, based
on its debilitating symptoms, and were assured by our team’s Ndarfn
that the injection would protect them. Plompkin, determined not to
confirm their obvious misunderstanding of science as magic,
explained to them in simple terms through his translators that once
their bodies had absorbed dead versions of the virus, they would be
immune to any danger from live ones.

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