Interview with Peter Piot Discoverer of the Ebola Virus
▻http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-peter-piot-discoverer-of-the-ebola-virus-a-993111.html
Almost four decades ago, Peter Piot was part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus. In a SPIEGEL interview, he describes how the disease was isolated and explains why the current outbreak is different than any that have come before. (...) Source: Spiegel Online
Interview with Peter Piot Discoverer of the Ebola Virus - SPIEGEL ONLINE
▻http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-peter-piot-discoverer-of-the-ebola-virus-a-993111.html#ref=nl
SPIEGEL: You were also the one who gave the virus its name. Why Ebola?
Piot: On that day, our team sat together late into the night — we had also had a couple of drinks — discussing the question. We definitely didn’t want to name the new pathogen “Yambuku virus” because that would have stigmatized the place forever. There was a map hanging on the wall and our American team leader suggested looking for the nearest river and giving the virus its name. It was the Ebola River. So by around three or four in the morning, we had found a name. But the map was small and inexact. We only learned later that the nearest river was actually a different one. But Ebola is a nice name, isn’t it?
▻https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Ebola,+République+démocratique+du+Congo/@3.3233292,20.9605556,24849m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m19!1m16!4m15!1m6!1m2!1s0x10b2e08f55a38e03:0xdc7ad627034aa
[faire un petit zoom arrière pour voir quelques photos du coin]
SPIEGEL: In the end, you discovered that the Belgian nuns had unwittingly spread the virus. How did that happen?
Piot: In their hospital, they regularly gave pregnant women vitamin injections using unsterilized needles. By doing so, they infected many young women in Yambuku with the Ebola virus. We told the nuns about the terrible mistake they had made, but looking back I would say that we were much too careful in our choice of words. Clinics that failed to observe this and other rules of hygiene functioned as catalysts in all additional Ebola outbreaks. They drastically sped up the spread of the virus or made the spread possible in the first place. Even in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, hospitals unfortunately played this ignominious role in the beginning.
