Scientist discovered Ebola virus

Nearly 40 years ago, the young Belgian scientist began his research journey in the remote part of Congo, with a mission to find out why many people died of a dangerous disease but never before known. .

In September 1976, a package containing a blue glass vase and balloon were sent to the Tropical Medicine Institute in Antwerp, Belgium. Peter Piot, 27, is working for the lab as a medical student and trained to become a microbiologist.

"It's just a normal bottle like any other you use to keep coffee warm," Piot recalls. However, it does not contain coffee inside but is another thing. Compaction between a few melting ice cubes is a small bottle of blood accompanied by a message that this blood sample of a nun, suffering from a strange disease can not be determined. The letter was sent from a Belgian doctor, living and working in Zaire, later the Democratic Republic of Congo today.

"When I opened the vase, we saw one of the vials of blood had broken, blood mixed with the water from the melting ice blocks," Piot recalls. He and his colleagues were unaware of how dangerous it was.

Peter Piot (right) at the laboratory of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, 1976. (Photo: BBC)

Blood samples were studied many times in the laboratory. When observing some cells under electron microscopy, they discovered a deep-shaped and giant-sized structure , much larger than the standard of conventional viruses.

According to the team, only one virus that looks like this is the Marburg virus , discovered in 1967. Piot understands the severity of Marburg, but after consulting with experts around the world, he gives that the structure was observed under a non-Marburg microscope but something else, never seen before.

Information spread to Antwep that the nun died. The team also confirmed many strange cases in a remote area in the north of the country, with symptoms including fever, diarrhea, vomiting, hemorrhage and death.

Two weeks later, Piot set out for Kinshasa, marking the first time to set foot in Africa in the hope of finding a new virus and preventing a disaster. The team was taken to the outbreak center, a village located in equatorial rainforest. Thanks to the C-130 transport aircraft, the team landed at Bumba, a river port located at the northern tip of the Congo River.

The fear of the mysterious disease became clearer, when the pilot did not even want to go around and keep the airplane engine running when the research team took things. Before leaving, they waved and said "'Adieu" , meaning "we will never see you again".

"I'm not afraid. The excitement of finding the cause and preventing the epidemic is overwhelming everything. We know that more and more people die than originally thought, and we want to start working. "The researcher said.

Detecting and blocking

Finally they were present at Yambuku village, about 120m from Bumba. Piot describes the landscape here as beautiful, rich in nature, but people are very poor. The first people he met were a group of nuns and priests. They gathered in one place and set up a barrier to prevent the spread of the disease. That way is not far from a line written in the local language: "Stop, anyone who comes over here can die." Piot jumps over the fence and says his team will help them.

The first priority is to prevent the epidemic, but the first thing that the research team needs to do is to find out the mechanism of transmission of viruses, in food, through human contact or insect spread. According to them, this is a type of viral infection. Women are more ill than men, especially those aged 18-30. Many of these women are pregnant and have visited local hospitals.

The mystery of the Ebola virus is gradually revealed. The name of the virus is based on a river in Zaire.

Pregnant women are given injections when visiting local hospitals. Every morning only 5 syringes are dispensed, so needles will be reused and the virus spreads through this way among patients. Others may become infected after attending a funeral. When a person dies from the Ebola virus, their body will be full of virus and so any direct contact activity will be the path of transmission.

People infected and suspected of getting sick start being taken to quarantine. People who have been in contact with patients have been tested, and people in the area have been guided in the process of burying dead people scientifically and providing many other important information.

Along with isolation activities, local hospitals are closed. Thus, the epidemic is prevented. However, the number of deaths reported to nearly 300 people.

Come back

Piot (purple shirt) during his return to Yambuku in February 2014.(Photo: BBC)

In February 2014, Piot returned to Yambuku on the occasion of his 65th birthday. He met Sukato Mandzomba, one of the few people infected with the virus in 1976 and survived. At the time of Piot's arrival, Mandzomba was a nurse at the local hospital.

According to Piot, in the absence of vaccines and treatments, advice for disease outbreaks are the same measures that were taken in the 1970s. "Soap, gloves, disease isolation People, not reusing needles and isolating patients - are theoretically very susceptible to Ebola virus , " he said.

In fact, many other factors can also make it difficult to prevent outbreaks, including community stigma, belief culture or belief that this is a magic disease. The researcher asserts that this is not a disease caused by poverty or abnormal health of people. Therefore, the provision of information, the involvement of the head of the community, or the medical method are very important factors in the fight against this dangerous virus.

After the Ebola virus battle, Piot began to study the AIDS pandemic in Africa and became the founding executive director of UNAIDS.