March 4th 2020. Dr Sam Allen, Consultant in Infectious Diseases, “Stuff Happens”

An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on March 4th 2020. The President was in the chair. A period of silence was held in memory of the late Mr Tony Chant. The President then introduced the speaker, Dr Sam Allen, a consultant in infectious diseases, who spoke to the title “Stuff Happens”. Dr Allen told us that being a medical officer to international exploration expeditions was a hobby of his. He first became involved when, as a medical student, he joined the Zaire River Expedition, run by Col. John Blashford Snell, as part of his elective. The experience of being on an expedition travelling the length of the Zaire River, and being a member of the medical team part of whose job was to treat River Blindness, had him hooked. He later became MO to an expedition searching for the lost city of Inca gold. His next trip was on Papyrus reed boats on John Blashford Snell’s Kota Mama Expeditions  which were trying  to prove the existence of trade links recorded 3000 years ago between Lake Titicaca in South America and West Africa. All these trips involve delivering medical attention to the locals as well as to the crew. The surgeries are always busy wherever they stop. He mentioned in particular a child with very severe cleft palate whom he managed to get treated in Great Ormond Street. He kept up with her and years later he said she also delivered a child with cleft palate. He showed us a terrifying video of one of the boats going through extreme rapids being capsized and the crew washed downstream in the violent water. They were lucky not to drown. They were saved by being washed onto a small island. 

By then he was a consultant in Infectious Diseases.He spent time in the Brazilian Instituto Evandro studying Zoonoses and he became especially interested in Chagas Disease and its consequences. He was part of the British Government team who went to deal with the outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone. In 2016 he was part of the team sent to Rio by the British Olympic Association before the Olympic Games to assess the risks from Zika virus infection.

He ended with a remarkable story about his return from an expedition in 2001. They landed at JFK airport in New York to refuel. On taxiing to the runway again could see through the window strange explosions on what seemed to be the Twin Towers in the distance. The airport was locked down and the flight aborted. Urgent requests for medics to come and help were broadcasting so  he travelled into New York and found himself treating the few survivors next to the fallen buildings. He later wrote a book about it.

The President thanked him for his talk and the speaker was soon surrounded by the medical students present eagerly wanting to know more about expedition medicine.