Where in the World is Dr. Salus "Dynamica" Mundi?
Pharmaceutical Success
Nina Novus has been following Dr. Salus Mundi on her Facebook™ account. If anything, she is appreciative of the access, but she's also getting the sense that Dr. Mundi is focused almost exclusively on her work.
Even though Novus prefers her informational contents fresh and raw, Nina Novus is not beyond reading the mainline press to get her information. She has just come across a news feed from Reuters that Dr. Salus "Dynamica" Mundi has been working with an international pharmaceutical company to get excess shipments of medications and supplies to various places in the world where those supplies may be needed. This work is often done on background and quietly. One of the lesser known aspects of "big pharma" companies is that they do contribute much to the world's global public health—even when the profit motive is less defined. At the end of one of the articles, the reporter says that a representative for Dr. Mundi says that she will be traveling with a vaccine shipment to aid in the distribution in a developing country.
Nina brings out her mobile device and reviews her notes. She peruses an informational diagram about the process of making an influenza vaccine.
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NINA NOVUS' ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOK Vaccines often use a weakened form of the virus that it is combating to trigger a health response in the human body, so that if the person is exposed to the actual virus on a future date, the body will muster a rigorous defense and shut down the invading virus from multiplying and causing disease. Vaccines may be designed for viral or bacterial pathogens. The costs of creating vaccines are high because of the complex levels of scientific research and painstaking production that goes into the work to make the vaccines effective and hygienic for mass use.
(The above open-source image was created by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the US Department of Health and Human Services / National Institutes of Health. This image is in the public domain)
There is an art and logistics to getting vaccines to people. There are optimized ways of delivering the vaccine with the proper level of potency. For children, vaccine makers strive to deliver the medicine through oral means to lower the potential fear factor. Public health officials often accompany mass vaccination opportunities with plenty of outreaches and educational endeavors.
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First, though, Dr. Mundi would be going to the pharmaceutical company in order to take part in a hand-shaking ceremony and to stand next to boxes of the vaccine.
If the company was going to be giving away vaccine that was dating out within the year because of an over-production schedule, they wanted not only to have a tax write-off for their charitable donation but also to be able to gain some positive publicity for it. The pharmaceutical company already had its media channels set up and had notified all those whom they were going to invite. If Nina was going to crash the event, she would have to figure out which one of the companies was hosting this.
Novus looks more closely at the stash of electronic articles she has on Dr. Mundi. She finds that the good doctor has worked with a half-dozen such companies in the past decade. If she were to guess, people tend to cultivate relationships, and if they're constructive, people tend to continue those relationships.
While there are many needs for health-giving drugs in developing countries, the economies in those various countries are often not sufficient to sustain the purchases of the cutting-edge medications. Many times, such countries purchase generics after the patents have gone into the public realm. Other times, they purchase knock-offs with uncertain formulas and uncertain side-effects.
She makes a table of the pharmaceutical companies with their drug areas of specialty. She is hoping to use a process of elimination to figure out which pharmaceutical company in which country she will head to. She simplifies down the information she has.
From press accounts, she knows the following facts to be true:
- The vaccine is for the current year's flu profile.
- The donated shipment involves sufficient amounts of vaccines for over ten thousand people—with specialized dosages for adults and others for children.
- The company is not a domestic one.
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Pharma 1 (USA) |
This boutique pharmaceutical company specializes in drugs dealing with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in both adults and children. |
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Pharma 2 (United Kingdom)
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This company deals with vaccines against certain tropical diseases like Yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, Chikungunya, West Nile, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. |
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Pharma 3 (Japan)
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This company creates prophylactics for the treatment of insect vector-borne diseases like malaria, filariasis, and West Nile. |
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Pharma 4 (Germany) |
This company is a specialty company that deals with drugs for oncology-based needs. |
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Pharma 5 (Switzerland)
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This company provides both over-the-counter and prescription-based vaccines for mass consumption. |
Novus's press pass has sometimes worked magic in getting her access to people who would not talk to her otherwise. She has confidence that if she shows up at the event that she would not be turned away and that Dr. Mundi might find the time to give her a world exclusive. Nina studies the map.
Novus catches her viewers up with her ambitions for catching up with Dr. Mundi for an exclusive interview.
She has found a clue in the following Facebook™ video.
Directions: Play only one of the following videos to the location that you've identified.
Germany
Switzerland
Japan
United Kingdom (UK)
United States
She writes down a few more questions that she has brainstormed for Dr. Mundi. She takes the next flight out, chaining together destinations in a computerized mess that gets her closer, she hopes.
