Shouldn't That be a Matter for the Minister for the Undead?

There are certain things you expect when you wind up as the president of a desperately poor African nation.  Firstly you expect to have the job for a goodly number of years.  Thirty or forty is considered about average.  Secondly you're not supposed to need to be too concerned about public opinion, public welfare or indeed public anything much.  Finally of course you expect to be able to loot enough out the country in that time to be able to die in a Swiss clinic of something appropriately affluent like diabetes or heart disease as opposed to your home village of something plebeian like malnutrition or ebola virus.

Pity then the president of Malawi.  Despite the best efforts of various presidents it remains stubbornly a multi party democracy where power can change hands by methods other than violence or natural attrition.  Indeed the last time it look like someone was going to play fast and loose with the constitution the army smacked them sharply around the head and said "Oi, respect the democratic process."  This means the president only has a couple of terms at best to get obscenely rich and he has to persuade the general population that they should let him do so.

Yes, life is tough for the president of Malawi (to be fair it's much tougher for virtually everyone else in the country) and things aren't being helped by the fact that he currently has to travel the countryside trying to persuade people not to hammer stakes through  the hearts of their fellow citizens.  You see Malawi whose normal threats are limited to mass starvation and sudden baby raids by the likes of Madonna and Angelina Jolie is facing a new and deadly danger.  Vampirism is apparently a serious threat in Malawi.

Actually no, vampirism is not a serious threat in Malawi.  Fear of vampires is a serious threat in Malawi.  Sufficiently serious that so far six people have been burnt or stoned to death by their neighbours on the suspicion that they might be part of the blood sucking undead.  Anti vampire vigilante mobs have been setting up road blocks and combing the area searching for anyone who might have longer than biologically necessary canines.

The UN has responded in much the same way as the UN does when crazy violence (and violence doesn't get much more crazy than this) erupts.  It has run away.  Once things calm down it will probably send in heavily armed peace keepers to help support the local prostitution industry.  Some NGOs have also pulled out particularly from the southern (apparently more vampire intensive) regions of the country.  What actually caused this outbreak of vampire related panic is somewhat unclear although it appears the rumours may actually have started in neighbouring Mozambique.  It wouldn't surprise me, you can't trust those beggars.  I'll bet they're sucking blood all over the place in Mozambique.

In possibly the most useful response to date the president of Malawi is touring affected areas trying to persuade the citizens that people they've known all their lives are unlikely, on balance, to be soulless animated corpses feasting on the lifeblood of the population.  Although coincidentally it is virtually his own job description.