African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1403: Chapter 2: The Plague Arrives

In comparison to East Africa’s higher education, the quality level of higher education in Europe and America is higher than that in East Africa, which is a fact that cannot be changed in the short term, as East Africa lacks historical depth.

Knowledge can also be inherited, and Europe, as the birthplace of modern scientific civilization, has long accumulated a vast number of related talents, and the field of science itself has monopolistic characteristics.

In a previous life, the United States surpassed Europe by harvesting talents during the two World Wars, while in this timeline, East Africa also exerted a certain influence. Besides East Africa’s massive investment in education resulting in great achievements, East Africa’s proactive talent acquisition plan during this World War attracted many European talents.

Among them, the East African Government’s most proud achievement was seizing the opportunity during Tsarist Russia’s internal turmoil to bring in a large number of high-end talents cultivated during the Tsarist regime.

At the same time, the East African Government obtained a lot of technology from the Allies during the World War, which played a validating and supplementary role in East Africa’s scientific development.

All of this will transform into East Africa’s national strength during the fifth five-year plan period, with the potential to directly drive East Africa’s development in industries such as chemicals, energy, and machinery, and indirectly enhance the advancement of frontier theories in mathematics, biology, physics, and chemistry.

Cabinda City naturally will also enjoy these benefits, being East Africa’s bridgehead open to Western Europe, North America, South America, and other Atlantic Rim Countries, serving as an international trade port.

Cabinda’s rapid development in East Africa, aside from policy support, is heavily influenced by geographical location. Although East Africa has territories in Cameroon and Gabon, they are far from East Africa’s economic center, which means it will be difficult for them to surpass Cabinda and Luanda in the future.

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While Director Bolna and Lischer were talking in the office, there was a sudden knock on the door, thud, thud, thud...

”Come in!” said Bolna.

The office door was opened, and Bolna’s secretary walked in with a flustered expression, saying, ”Director, there’s a problem!”

Seeing the secretary’s nervousness, Bolna felt a chill in his heart but calmly asked, ”Why the urgency? What’s the big issue?”

The secretary quickly said, ”In our recent work, we discovered an abnormal situation with ships coming from Europe; the number of sick people on European ships has noticeably increased over the past few days.”

”In our recent inspection of twenty-five international ships, six showed similar cases, with patients uniformly exhibiting headaches, high fever, and muscle atrophy, and these six ships hail from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal.”

”Therefore, our epidemic experts deduce that this could be a major epidemic, primarily erupting in Europe.”

Upon hearing the secretary’s words, Bolna could no longer remain calm; he suddenly asked, ”Is the information confirmed?”

The secretary said, ”There’s a ninety percent probability. That’s the conclusion provided by our epidemic experts. They speculate the epidemic may have just formed in Europe, influenced by the war, and is concentrated in this time frame.”

”Because most ships have not shown similar situations, and some ship departure ports are identical to those of suspected case origins.”

Bolna said solemnly, ”In matters like this, it’s better to believe it’s happening than not. Immediately report the situation to the Customs Bureau and request deployment of professional personnel for investigation.”

”Also, contact Cabinda City’s epidemic station and health bureau and other related units, having them ready to collaborate.”

”Simultaneously isolate suspected patients and conduct priority inspection and re-inspection on all ships arriving from Europe.”

”Inform the police department and immigration office to investigate and monitor recent entrants.”

Bolna could not take this lightly because East Africa is a country that places great emphasis on epidemic prevention; it’s a tradition, given East Africa’s relatively harsh conditions and the tendency for large-scale infectious diseases to arise in tropical regions.

December 29, 1919.

With the new year approaching, Europe’s epidemic dealt the entire East African Government a heavy blow. This period was supposed to be a rare vacation, but due to the outbreak, various government entities in East Africa had to return to their posts and get busy.

Rhein City.

Ernst asked the Minister of Health, Garlowe, ”Is the news true?”

Garlowe said, ”Yes, Your Majesty. According to confirmation from the Empire’s top epidemiologist team, this is an epidemic originating from Europe.”

”We’ve found suspected cases at several ports on the West Coast, and local health bureaus have compiled individual instances; it can be confirmed a large epidemic is sweeping towards the Empire.”

The West Coast of East Africa is currently the primary trading partner with Western European countries, a consequence of the previous Allies’ blockade against the Allies.

Even though the war’s two major camps have now ceased fighting and the blockade is lifted, many ships engaged in East Africa-Europe trade have become accustomed to the Atlantic Ocean route.

And although the Suez Canal has resumed navigation, it will take some time to recover.

Ernst was calculating in his mind how to respond; in translation, Ernst had actually anticipated this epidemic, given that Europe faced the Spanish flu in the previous world.

Moreover, as the old saying goes, a disaster is often followed by an epidemic. The entire World War going on for nearly five years made the outbreak at this time extremely unexpected for Ernst.