Writing in 1947, as the world whooped victory and “Never Again”, Camus insisted that the next plague “would rouse up its rats again” for “the bane and enlightenment of men”. It is generally agreed that the pestilence he describes signifies the Third Reich. I think Camus intended such a literal – as well as allegorical - reading. In it we encounter the courage, fear and calculation that we read or hear in every story about West Africa’s efforts to curtail and confront Ebola through its narrator, Dr Rieux, we can identify with the hundreds of Cuban doctors who went immediately to the plague’s Ground Zero, and those such as the Scottish nurse currently fighting for her life at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Camus’ story is that of a group of men, defined by their gathering around and against the plague.
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