The old reaper has found a new scythe, and it is the unvaccinated lungs of a Bangladeshi child. Measles, that baroque and utterly preventable disease, is currently conducting a rather successful tour of the subcontinent, leaving a trail of tiny coffins and frantic donor conferences in its wake. Hundreds of children, their immune systems as fragile as a junior minister's conscience, have already been claimed. And what, pray tell, is the response from the great and good of the British aid sector? Why, they are mobilising, darling. They are coordinating. They are furrowing their brows over spreadsheets and booking flights to Dhaka, armed with clipboards, branded fleeces, and a palpable sense of their own heroic necessity.
One can almost hear the collective chink of gin and tonics at the NGO headquarters in Islington as the emergency roster is activated. "Code Red, Jeremy. The children are dying. Fetch my satchel and my copy of 'When Helping Hurts' immediately." The irony, of course, is that we have known how to stop measles since the 1960s. It involves a needle, a small amount of liquid, and a basic functioning healthcare system. But why engage in the unglamorous, long-term slog of building that system when you can sweep in, blonde highlights gleaming, to administer the crisis and film a poignant 'saviour selfie' against a backdrop of temporary clinics?
This is the theatre of the ridiculous. The British public, forking over their direct debits, will be shown footage of brave medics in hazmat suits. They will see the anguished faces of mothers. They will not be shown the fact that a vaccine costs roughly the same as a packet of crisps, or that the real tragedy is not the outbreak itself but the chronic, systematic neglect that allowed it to happen. Our aid agencies, bless their cargo-panted hearts, are excellent at dealing with the consequences of poverty. They are spectacularly poor at preventing it. That would require admitting that poverty is a political choice, not an act of God or a tropical weather pattern.
So as the bodies mount up in Bangladesh, let us raise a glass to the well-meaning bureaucrats in their air-conditioned crisis rooms. They will fly in, distribute some medicines, issue some press releases, and fly out again. The measles will fade, as it always does, until the next time the funding runs low or the logistics fail. But the children are dead. And somewhere in a London office, another grant proposal is being written. The circus never stops.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a bottle of Gordon's and a copy of the World Health Organisation's latest report. It's the only way to read it sober.
