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| A nurse sprays preventives to disinfect the waiting area for visitors at the ELWA Hospital during an outbreak of the Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia (AFP) |
The
scientist who helped discover the Ebola virus said the outbreak in west Africa
was unlikely to trigger a major epidemic outside the region, adding he would
happily sit next to an infected person on a train.
But
Professor Peter Piot told AFP that a "really bad" sense of panic and
lack of trust in the authorities in west Africa had contributed to the world's
largest-ever outbreak.
The Belgian
scientist, now based in Britain, urged officials to test experimental vaccines
on people with the virus so that when it inevitably returns, the world is
prepared.
Since
March, there have been 1,201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Doctors
Without Borders (MSF) has warned that the crisis is set to get worse and that
there is no overarching strategy to handle the crisis.
Piot
co-discovered the Ebola virus as a 27-year-old researcher in 1976.
He is now
director of the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and
was previously executive director of the United Nations' HIV/AIDS program
UNAIDS.
Even if
someone carrying Ebola were to fly to Europe, the United States or another part
of Africa, "I don't think that will give rise to a major epidemic,"
he told AFP.
"Spreading
in the population here, I'm not that worried about it," he said.
"I
wouldn't be worried to sit next to someone with Ebola virus on the Tube as long
as they don't vomit on you or something. This is an infection that requires
very close contact."
His
insights are born of deep experience in the field, highlighted by his impressive
CV and the mementos from around the world that dot his office in London.
Piot helped
identify Ebola when the laboratory where he was working in Antwerp was sent a
blood sample from a Catholic nun who had died in what was then Zaire and is now
DR Congo.
From the
blood, they isolated a new virus which was later confirmed to be Ebola.
He later
went to Yambuku, a village in Zaire's Equateur province, where an epidemic had
taken hold.
"People
were devastated because in some villages, one in 10, one in eight people could
die from Ebola," he said.
"I was
scared but I was 27 so you think you are invincible."
Researchers
noticed most of the infections were among women aged between 20 and 30 and
clustered around a clinic where they went for pre-natal consultations.
It turned
out that the virus was being transmitted through a handful of needles which
were being reused to give injections to pregnant women.
There were
also a string of outbreaks linked to funerals.
"Like
in any culture, someone who dies is washed, the body is laid out but you do
this with bare hands, without gloves. Someone who died from Ebola, that person
is covered with virus because of vomitus, diarrhoea, blood," he said.
"That's
how then you get new outbreaks and the same thing is happening now in west
Africa."
He said
recent history in Liberia and Sierra Leone was complicating efforts to tackle
the deadly virus, which kills as many as nine-tenths of the people it infects.
"Let's
not forget that these countries are coming out of decades of civil war,"
he said.
"Liberia
and Sierra Leone are now trying to reconstruct themselves so there is a total
lack of trust in authorities, and that combined with poverty and very poor
health services I think is the explanation why we have this extensive outbreak
now."
Staff are
also often poorly equipped with no protective gear or gloves, he added.
While there
are a couple of experimental Ebola vaccines and treatments which have shown
promising results in animals, these need to be tested on people, he added.
"I
think that the time is now, at least in capitals, to offer this kind of
treatment for compassionate use but also to find out if it works so that for
the next epidemic, we are ready," he said.
"It is
quite clear that new viruses will emerge all the time and Ebola will come again
-- hopefully not to this extent."
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