"At 71, Peter Piot is a rock-star virologist, the Mick Jagger of microbes. The man who helped discover Ebola when he was 27 & who led the fight against HIV-Aids is a legend in global health."
ft.com/content/de0a7c…
ft.com/content/de0a7c…
“In 2002 UNAIDS issued the “Titanic Peril” report, which argued that China had many more cases of HIV than it was admitting. “It’s the only time that my then boss, Kofi Annan, called me on a Sunday. He said, ‘Peter, you’re a brave man, but nobody has ever won against China.""
"I remind him of @Laurie_Garrett's book The Coming Plague. In our arms race with microorganisms, are humans destined to lose? Piot quotes Louis Pasteur: “‘Messieurs’ — because they were all men in those days — ‘microbes will always have the last word.’”
[2 months later]
'After fighting viruses all over the world for more than 40 years,... finally, a virus got me.’ Peter Piot, the virologist who co-discovered Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death after being infected with COVID-19.
sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/f…
'After fighting viruses all over the world for more than 40 years,... finally, a virus got me.’ Peter Piot, the virologist who co-discovered Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death after being infected with COVID-19.
sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/f…
'I’m glad I had corona and not Ebola, although I read a scientific study yesterday that concluded you have a 30% chance of dying if you end up in a British hospital with COVID-19. That’s about the same overall mortality rate as for Ebola in 2014 in West Africa.'
'Many people think COVID-19 kills 1% of patients, and the rest get away with some flulike symptoms. But the story gets more complicated. Many people will be left with chronic kidney and heart problems. Even their neural system is disrupted.'
'I shared a [hospital] room with a homeless person, a Colombian cleaner, and a man from Bangladesh—all three diabetics, incidentally, which is consistent with the known picture of the disease. The days and nights were lonely because no one had the energy to talk.'
'I have always had great respect for viruses, and that has not diminished. I have devoted much of my life to the fight against the AIDS virus. It’s such a clever thing; it evades everything we do to block it. Now, I look at viruses differently.'
