Plague

Malaria is not ordinarily much of a killer, but in Upper Egypt last week it was as lethal as the plague. Accepted estimate was that in two years it has caused about 86,000 deaths in Qena and Aswan provinces (pop. about 1,000,000), some 400 miles from Cairo. Other estimates run as high as 200,000. Whole villages have been wiped out and, as in plague times, bodies lie unburied in the streets. Only in India and China, where malaria's pernicious forms are common, are such epidemics prevalent.

Many Egyptians blame the epidemic on the British, claim the British brought Anopheles gambiae, the most dreaded malaria-carrying mosquito, to the area via Nubia from the Sudan. They also blame the British for buying up Egypt's food, causing undernourishment which makes the fellahin highly susceptible to disease. Actually, the British buy no corn at all from Egypt, buy no wheat without permission from the Government. Real reason the fellahin are starving: they get only about 2O-c- a day to feed themselves and their families, from landlords who run the region on the feudal system. Now even the landlords are worried, for malaria has so weakened the workers that ten are now needed to do the work of one and the production of sugar may soon go down.

The malaria situation became a political issue last fortnight when Egyptian Government delegates in the Chamber of Deputies tried to smother bitter complaints by claiming that malaria has caused only 13,000 deaths. But even King Farouk knew better--he had visited the stricken land.

Also alarming is the prospect that Anopheles gambiae may continue its progress north and breed in the myriad ponds and pools of northern Egypt, causing a disastrous epidemic which would hinder the war effort in Cairo.

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