Case:Black - 27. Chapter 27

Southaven General Hospital

4^th Floor

2045CST

The doctors ran out of time. They had patients and they had to act.

Jackson and his ad hoc group of clinicians looked at all the available information and consulted with colleagues. There was no standard treatment for Pandora so they had use their best judgment.

They knew how to treat encephalitis. West Nile and other mosquito borne viruses had given them quite a bit of experience with standard encephalitis. No one had ever attempted to treat a case of Pandora.

Dr. Jackson and Pharmacist Chief Yates answer to Pandora was an IV mixture of several drugs. First was a steroid that minimized inflammation and swelling. The second was a mild analgesic to blunt the pain of the splitting headache that went with onset of encephalitis. In the absence of guidance from above, three separate anti-viral drugs.

First was a fusion inhibitor: a compound that blocks a virus’s entry into a host cell.

The second was a protease inhibitor: when a virus manipulates its genetic material, it uses an enzyme called protease to create useful strands of genetic material. By blocking protease, the drug blocks a key phase of viral replication.

The last antiviral was a Nucleotide Reverse Transcription Inhibitor. This drug blocks a virus’s ability to accurately copy its genetic material.

Jackson hooked up the first IVs for a pair of teen aged twins, across the hall a mother, a young woman, and each and every one of them trusted him to make things better. For the sick, desperate patients in that ward he transcended being a doctor. He was a white clad symbol of all their hopes in the science of medicine.

All of the anti-viral drugs were developed and tested against HIV/AIDS: a disease that caused similar pervasive fear in previous decades. He remembered the stories of the doctors during the eighties and early nineties and how helpless they felt as their patients slipped away. Jackson hoped that the lessons learned from that fight would help him here.

Soon all of the incoming patients got an IV bag full of Jackson and Yate’s witches brew. All the doctors and nurses could do was stand back, pray and see how it worked.