Professor Paul Griffin

I think it's very likely we're going to see a lot more cases.

I'd really like to think it's relatively geographically contained, so we'll see more cases in that region and hopefully not many outside of there.

We've seen a few cases in neighbouring countries like Uganda, but we know that it's very difficult to control something like this in that area.

It's an infection that's actually quite hard to spread.

So it requires close contact with blood or body fluids.

And so therefore, basic protocols and PPE should be able to contain this fairly readily.

But when they aren't available and there's other challenges at play and the numbers are already far greater than we're potentially seeing, it could be something that does remain difficult to get on top of.

Yeah, that's right.

We're very fortunate to have a vaccine that's quite effective against the most common type.

Whether reducing the risk of that has led to this situation or contributed to it in some ways, very hard to say.

But this is a type we haven't seen cause too many major problems in the past.

And therefore, we don't have a vaccine or obviously no therapies as well.

So

We are relying on those fundamental principles to get it back under control while we hopefully wait to develop a vaccine.

And there are some great efforts in that regard, trying to make a vaccine for this particular type, because unfortunately, these Ebola viruses are so different that the vaccine, for one, doesn't provide any protection against the others.

So we need to make a specific vaccine for this type of Ebola for it to be effective.

Absolutely.

This one health concept, and it's not only people, it's also animals as well, we need to be aware of.

There's probably some animal reservoirs at play with this situation.

And we saw that with Hantavirus as well.