Children could simply swallow a daily pill, eliminating risky injections. Within six weeks of his discovery of the meningitis outbreak, Hopkins recalled, Pfizer was jetting toward the epidemic's center. The ancient walled city of Kano is an impoverished metropolis of 2 million people. Amid its clamor sits the Kano Infectious Disease Hospital, a compound of crumbling cinder-block bunkers. International aid workers call it one of the world's most fetid and overburdened hospitals.
Rats chew on neglected corpses.
Hospital officials gave the researchers two of the best-maintained patient wards, including much of the compound's coveted bed space, charity workers said. Pfizer's test also drained away the most experienced Nigerian doctors and nurses, she said. Over two weeks, the Pfizer researchers assumed care of 198 children, most underweight and some only a few months old. But Lodi, of Doctors Without Borders, described Pfizer's disruptions as so serious that they alone may have contributed to patient deaths. Problems arose as soon as the experiment began.