"If West Africa was a gas can waiting for the Ebola match to strike, megacities in equatorial Africa are the gas tankers waiting for an Ebola spark. We simply cannot let this opportunity to prepare for the next outbreak pass us by."
"Despite the industry pointing its finger at the wild birds, [the evidence is] just not there. It was not the source of widespread [avian flu] transmission to many operations throughout the Upper Midwest."
"They [WHO leaders] don't have the authority to do anything. They don't have the resources to do any of it. If we blame WHO for this [response to Zika], shame on us because we're continuing to miss the lessons of these crises. The world's public health governance is a mess."
"What has been unfortunate is this debate for the last month of whether the link [between Zika virus and microcephaly] is proven or unproven. We had clear evidence for public health officials to take action a month ago."
"What’s fueled A. aegpyti [the mosquito that transmits Zika virus] is the overabundance of nondegradable biomaterials. Cleaning it up doesn't take research. It takes a will to do it."
"Zika is here to stay in the Western Hemisphere. . . . Even if we make vector control efforts a major initiative, it will only reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of Zika. What we need next, urgently, is a vaccine."
"Some critics are suggesting that such vaccine research for Zika should have been done years ago, but this isn’t entirely fair. It was only in the past 2 years that there was any indication this virus could cause serious human disease. Now we have to catch up. But it’s going to be complicated."
"These mosquitoes have adapted very well to our throw-away society. It's not in the swamps where the mosquitoes that spread malaria live. But that discarded fast food wrapper in the ditch could be a very important source of Aedes."
