Fifty years ago, Sir Peter Piot opened a mysterious package sent to his Belgian lab containing a thermos.
asserted
Piot → open → thermos
With no protective gear besides latex gloves, the young microbiologist unscrewed it and found a slurry of half-melted ice, the shards of a broken test tube, clotted blood, and ink running from a handwritten note.
asserted
microbiologist → unscrew → note
The letters could still be deciphered: the blood, a physician had written from a clinic in Kinshasa, now the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was from a Belgian nun struck down by an ugly affliction he could not diagnose.
uncertain
he → decipher → affliction
From that unsavoury soup, Piot and his colleagues would extract and discover one of the most dangerous viruses ever found: Ebola.
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Piot → extract → viruses
Watching the most aggressive-ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever devastate the DRC half a century later, unleashed by the rare Bundibugyo strain, the now-renowned virologist has turned his mind to the “holy grail” of prevention: treatments that work against whole families of a virus.
“I regret that we did not invest in a vaccine for the whole family – not just each virus strain,” he says.
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he → watch → family
“We need to go to something that is broadly protective.”
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that → need → something
Soon after co-discovering the strange, wormlike virus in 1976, Piot found himself in the Congo, examining the blood of a nurse racked with uncontrollable vomiting, diarrhoea and sticky black bruises around her nose, ears and mouth.
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Piot → - → nose
His hands shook as he handled her sample, saw the cratered platelet count and came to understand the terror the virus brought: her blood work, at a cellular level, was a “catastrophe”.
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work → shake → level
Close to 8000 people have contracted the virus during the latest outbreak.
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people → contract → outbreak
There have been 3761 confirmed deaths across the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda and the disease has now reached the South Ubangi province, 1000 kilometres from the outbreak’s epicentre.
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disease → confirm → epicentre
With no treatments for Bundibugyo, responders have had little choice but to roll out a vaccine targeting a different type of the virus, Zaire, which Piot believes will offer at least some protection.
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Piot → have → protection
“It will get worse before it gets better.
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it → get → ?
It’s still expanding.
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It → expand → ?
And the big unknown is whether it will get into a city in Congo like Kisangani.
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it → get → Kisangani
Will it go to Goma?
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it → go → Goma
Will it get into South Sudan?
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it → get → Sudan
Before the end of the year there’s definitely no way it’ll be over.
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it → ’ → year
Part of the frustration is watching the global community funnel funds into the region – about $US3 billion has gushed into the DRC – and deaths still mount.
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deaths → watch → DRC
Despite the influx of funds, some frontline nurses and doctors at most risk of illness are not getting paid.
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nurses → pay → illness
“Healthcare workers have not been paid for three months.
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workers → pay → months
They risk their lives every single day.
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They → risk → lives
They’re not paid so they go and strike.
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they → pay → ?
I mean, I would do the same.
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I → mean → same
It’s a tragedy.
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It → ’ → ?
It’s a cycle Piot wants broken: new zoonotic outbreak, global panic, torched resources, eventual loss of interest, and a lapse back into complacency.
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Piot → ’ → complacency
Piot visited the Doherty Institute in Melbourne this month, in part to discuss efforts to make new antivirals and multi-variant vaccines, which would be key to breaking this deadly loop.
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which → visit → loop
It’s a scientific quest easier said than done.
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It → ’ → ?
The institute’s namesake, Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty, has said making a multi-strain vaccine is harder than putting man on the moon.
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making → say → moon
But the rockets, so to speak, are warming up.
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rockets → speak → ?
In June, scientists from the University of Cambridge announced they’d trialled a new vaccine in 39 people that could protect against a range of Sarbeco coronaviruses including COVID-19, SARS and other related viruses in bats.
uncertain
that → announce → bats
Instead of crafting a vaccine tailored to one strain’s spike protein, the researchers used AI to analyse the genetics of thousands of related viruses to create a “super-antigen”: something that generates an immune response targeting common features across the whole viral family.
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that → craft → family
The impact on the immune system was “modest”, the researchers wrote in the Journal of Infection, but promising enough that the team are planning to use the same approach to tackle multiple Ebola strains.
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team → write → strains
The study marked the first use of an AI-designed vaccine in people.
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study → mark → people
“I was in intensive care and I got long COVID.
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I → get → COVID
I know it’s no joke,” he says.
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he → know → ?
As he struggled for breath in a ward he shared with three other gasping patients, his only gratitude was that he didn’t have Ebola.
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he → struggle → Ebola
For weeks afterwards he could only whisper.
uncertain
he → whisper → weeks
The experience convinced him we need faster-acting antivirals to handle outbreaks alongside vaccines, which can take days to kick in with an immune response.
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which → convince → response
“I’m promoting the fact that we should develop small molecule therapeutics that can treat or prevent infections on a whole family of viruses,” he says.
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he → promote → viruses
One of the Doherty Institute’s researchers Piot met last week, Dr Rubaiyea Farrukee, is pursuing just that.
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Piot → meet → that
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
