Armand Sprecher

It's a good question.

We are in a rather difficult situation for two important reasons.

One, as has already been mentioned, we got to this one a little bit later than usual.

And the number of cases that are out there already at the get-go are such that we are stretched thin from day one.

And they are spreading out over the region.

The other is, as has been mentioned, this is the Bundibugyo virus, not Ebola virus.

And although this means that we don't have treatments and vaccines, it also means that we do not have the diagnostics we need.

The tests that we have that we've used so well before are geared up for Ebola virus, not Bundibugyo.

And so right now we're in a situation where we cannot determine who has the disease or not, because Ebola doesn't look...

like people have a scarlet E on their forehead.

It's just a febrile illness that used to look very sick.

And these people in this region can be sick for a number of reasons, you know, malaria, typhoid, any one of a number of diseases.

So sorting out the people who have Bundibugyo virus and who have other pathogens is going to have to wait until the tests show up.

So once you build a treatment unit where you can care for people safely, how do you know who to put in?

How do you know who to keep out?

So that puts us in a very difficult situation for managing the outbreak.

So we're behind, we're getting set up, but we're already in a management difficulty because it's hard to know who has the disease that we have to manage.

We're mobilizing again like it was the West Africa outbreak.

Already we're trying to get as many people brought online as we can, but we also have to learn how to pace ourselves because this looks like it could go for a while.

And if we throw everybody into the fight right now, they're going to have to rotate out and then we're going to be stuck.