"We are doctors. Liu Tangchun didn't answer Iweala directly, he just smiled lightly, "The reason why we chose to come back to the camp is the same as if you didn't leave here." ”

After putting on protective clothing, Sun Lien and others quickly devoted themselves to taking care of the sick patients. At Sun Lien's strong insistence, Hu Jia agreed to watch only as an aseptic operation supervisor. The actual operation was all completed by Sun Lien, Hu Chunbo and even Liu Tangchun himself.

Liu Tangchun didn't say anything about Sun Lien's insistence, and Hu Chunbo didn't complain about it in order to show his ability - he thought that his current job was a trial test before recruitment.

But the situation at the scene was worse than everyone imagined. The U.S. camp has the luxury of using a separate personal room as an isolation room, but because it is a temporary building, it is impossible to build a negative pressure room that meets the standards for the prevention and control of infectious diseases. In order to make the patients in the room feel better, all rooms are air-conditioned – which results in the isolation room effectively becoming a positive pressure room.

This is dangerous, especially when confronted with an infectious disease whose transmission route is not yet known. The first thing Sun Lien and others did when they put into their work was to turn off the air conditioners in all the rooms. Then it was switched to open windows for ventilation – the isolation cells were centrally located in the southeast corner of the camp, which in turn was the downwind of the camp. Opening windows for ventilation is much safer than the previous air conditioning and closed environment.

"All patients showed severe, persistent headaches. Hu Chunbo volunteered to go around the isolation room first, and then came back worried. "All eight patients have blood pressure rises to varying degrees, and if this continues, I am afraid that they will all die of pain before the acute meningitis develops into brain herniation. ”

"Did you use pain relief?" Liu Tangchun frowned and asked, "Americans are not as strict as us in secotic anesthesia medicine, and they all hurt like this...... Shouldn't it be pain-relieving?"

"Yes, and it's fentanyl. "Hu Chunbo said when he reported the name of the drug, "1.5 ml of fentanyl citrate injection was injected into 150 ml of normal saline intravenously, and in order to prevent respiratory depression, he was also put on a positive pressure ventilator, but the patients who took the drug did not improve - they were still crying out for pain." ”

"Fentanyl is useless?" Liu Tangchun was really scared now, "They are drug resistant?"

Hu Chunbo shook his head with some hesitation, "It should be...... Americans abuse psychotropic substances a lot, but not so much that everyone is resistant to fentanyl. He looked at Liu Tangchun and Sun Lien, "I doubt it...... The pain isn't because there are actually any nerves signaling to the brain — it could be nerve damage caused by meningitis, a headache similar to a neuropathic headache, but closer to an illusion. ”

The brain is the body's most important core receptor. Sensations transmitted by other nerves are "translated" in the brain as feelings that can be understood subjectively by humans. For example, pain, itching, cold, warmth, and so on. But after brain damage, the human body sometimes experiences all sorts of strange, unexplained sensations. For example, I feel that there is an extra pair of wings on my back, and I feel hot and dry even though I am soaked in cold water. If even fentanyl doesn't work, it only means that these patients are not really "feeling" the pain. Their brains are constantly sending them false warnings.

"I've heard of cases where nerves in the brain are damaged and cause false sensations. Liu Tangchun frowned and asked, "But according to the previous officer, half of the patients with this kind of acute meningitis showed severe headaches, and each of the more than a dozen patients had damage in the area where the pain was grasped, which is too low." ”

Liu Tangchun and Hu Chunbo were arguing about where the patient's pain came from, while Sun Lien was frowning and falling into deep thought.

Something is not quite right.

The status bar didn't swipe out "Warning" in large red font as he approached the isolation room, as usual. There is no "high risk of transmission", and there is no "high risk of death", the status bar is like a lazy janitor, who looks at it and thinks that there is no problem, so he returns to the chaise longue with the teacup in his hand and starts to nap.

The gap between the actual situation and the expectation was too big, and Sun Lien was a little unsure of what the situation was for a while. Twenty-seven people became ill in a short period of time, and the symptoms were consistent and the mortality rate was extremely high. This clearly shows that it should be an infectious disease, why doesn't the status bar prompt?

Sun Lien's confusion lasted for a while, but it was good to be an emergency doctor—even if they couldn't figure out the situation, they could deal with it based on experience and the patient's symptoms.

"There's mannitol, right? Let's get a bottle for everybody. Liu Tangchun waved his hand and stopped arguing with Hu Chunbo, he turned to Sun Lien and said, "Control the intracranial pressure to buy time, find out all their previous treatment records, whether they are dead or alive, all the records are required." ”

Sun Lien nodded and walked briskly towards Iweila's office. My group of people in the American camp is really "unfamiliar", and the fastest and most convenient way to find previous treatment records is to ask Iweala.

"Treatment records, yes, I put them here...... Iweala nodded after hearing Sun Lien's request in Chinese-English, turned around and began to rummage through the reports and materials. Out of an abundance of caution, Sun Lien glanced at Iweala's status bar - there was no hint of acute meningitis, and Ms. Iweala's physical condition was normal except for anxiety and nervousness.

"These people who are sick ......" Sun Lien decided to do a little history taking when Ivela went to look for the report. Since most patients are unable to converse effectively because of severe pain, Iweala is now the most reliable and easy source of medical history, "Do you think they have anything in common?"

"The biggest thing they have in common is that they are both male. Iweala's response is a reflection of the sensitivity of a health worker, "The twenty-seven sick patients were all men and had just arrived in Africa from China – they had only been in the camp for a month. ”

Is there an infectious disease in this world that only infects a single gender? Sun Lien frowned deeply, although he is not an expert in infectious diseases, but Sun Lien, who has received medical education, knows very well that everyone is equal in the face of infectious diseases. There may be some people who are weaker and have underlying medical conditions who are more susceptible to the threat of infectious diseases, but in general, infectious diseases do not have a preference for gender.

"Are there any other characteristics?" Sun Lien continued, "These people were in the United States before...... They all live in the same community?" he began to wonder if the virulent contagion came directly from the United States.

"Most of those GIs were trained at the Fort Detrick Army Base before they were deployed to Africa. Iweala shook her head, "But the doctors haven't been to that area before. Before they came to Africa, they were spread across six states in the country. I'm sure they got infected when they came to Africa — and if there was such a serious epidemic in the United States, the news media would have reported it long ago. ”