He said it would pick up similar symptoms found at hospitals in the same area, where a doctor finding a patient with a rash and fever might not immediately think of smallpox.
Some had tried explaining that his fears were unfounded, since the affliction had arrived not at birth but after an attack of the spotted fever when he was a boy of five.
Not surprising then, that the Nations Cup train is building such a powerful head of steam that football fever is sure to reach epidemic proportions by Christmas.