World Report
Peter Piot wins 2015 Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
Gairdner Foundation
Peter Piot has been awarded the Gairdner Foundation’s 2015 global health prize for his codiscovery of the Ebola virus and his many contributions to the HIV/AIDS field. John Maurice reports.
Peter Piot Published Online March 25, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(15)60610-9
1170
People in Belgian Flanders have a saying: “rest rusts”. No rust has gathered on one native of the area. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in London, UK, has spent most of his life on the move exploring microbes and travelling to the four corners of the earth to convince presidents, dictators, business tycoons, and other key movers to join his quest to alleviate the suffering caused by these microbes. His efforts have brought him a long list of honours. As of March 25, he can add the Gairdner global health prize, worth CAN$100 000, to the list. “I was really thrilled when I heard the news of this award”, he tells The Lancet. “Thrilled because it’s a very prestigious award and I have great respect for previous winners.” His achievements certainly won the respect of the Gairdner selection committee. “The vote of the committee was unanimous”, notes Jeremy Farrar, who heads the Wellcome Trust in London, UK, and is a member of the committee. “What really impressed us all is how throughout his career he has combined cutting-edge research, often in very difficult environments, with the interests of the whole global health community, particularly the interests of people living in the poorer countries of the world, whose perspectives and needs he has brought to the forefront of international attention and action. Very few people have achieved that.” Looking back on his career, Piot feels “privileged to have been associated with the two defining epidemics of our time, Ebola and AIDS”. In September, 1976, aged 27 years and just out of medical school, Piot “codiscovered”—with his team of microbiologists in the Institute
of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and with scientists working at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA—a hitherto unknown virus that was causing the deaths of hundreds of people in Zaire (now called Democratic Republic of the Congo). The discoverers named the virus after the Ebola river flowing near the epicentre of the epidemic.
“‘...throughout his career he has combined cutting-edge research, often in very difficult environments, with the... interests of people living in the poorer countries of the world...’” Piot’s subsequent research on the epidemiology of the virus brought him into frequent contact with Africa— and face to face with the continent’s burden of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). “I became really attracted to Africa”, he admits. “I felt that Africans were facing such huge health problems and health inequalities that I could make more of a difference there than in Europe.” In 1980, his interest in STD research propelled him to the USA, where he worked first at the CDC and then at the University of Washington. King Holmes, a world-renowned STD expert at the university, remembers Piot as “a great team builder, easy to get on with, very down to earth, very quick to assess the nature of a problem, not demanding but knowing how to get the best of a person”. The year is 1981. Piot is back in Antwerp reading a CDC report about five gay men suffering from an unknown syndrome that was wiping out their immune system. The syndrome was AIDS and was to become Piot’s consuming passion
over the next three decades. In 1983, he assembled an international team, which discovered a full-blown epidemic of AIDS in men and women in central Africa. “This was the beginning of an extremely productive period of research, mainly in Zaire and Kenya, that gave us a wealth of basic knowledge about HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa”, Piot recalls. In 1995, with HIV infecting 20 million people, he became the first executive director of UNAIDS, a position that allowed him to campaign unceasingly against the denial, injustice, and stigma undercutting the battle against AIDS. “One thing I just could not accept was that people in poor countries were not receiving the life-saving antiretroviral drugs because of their price”, he says. His campaigning was instrumental in lowering the cost of treatment from US$14 000 per person per year, when the drugs first came out in 1996, to less than $300 by the time Piot left UNAIDS in 2008. “My major regret, though, is the time it took to achieve this result”, he admits. “In 1996, we had the drugs in the West. It took about 10 years before a million Africans could benefit from it.” Mark Dybul, who heads the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and who nominated Piot for the Gairdner award, has no regrets about his choice. “Peter clearly achieved his objective to put AIDS at the top of the world’s political agenda. All in all, given his long history as a researcher, his incredible instinct for seeing the big picture, and his understanding of what science can do to advance public health, it would be hard to find someone more qualified to receive this award.”
John Maurice www.thelancet.com Vol 385 March 28, 2015
Peter Piot wins 2015 Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
Gairdner Foundation
Peter Piot has been awarded the Gairdner Foundation’s 2015 global health prize for his codiscovery of the Ebola virus and his many contributions to the HIV/AIDS field. John Maurice reports.
Peter Piot Published Online March 25, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(15)60610-9
1170
People in Belgian Flanders have a saying: “rest rusts”. No rust has gathered on one native of the area. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in London, UK, has spent most of his life on the move exploring microbes and travelling to the four corners of the earth to convince presidents, dictators, business tycoons, and other key movers to join his quest to alleviate the suffering caused by these microbes. His efforts have brought him a long list of honours. As of March 25, he can add the Gairdner global health prize, worth CAN$100 000, to the list. “I was really thrilled when I heard the news of this award”, he tells The Lancet. “Thrilled because it’s a very prestigious award and I have great respect for previous winners.” His achievements certainly won the respect of the Gairdner selection committee. “The vote of the committee was unanimous”, notes Jeremy Farrar, who heads the Wellcome Trust in London, UK, and is a member of the committee. “What really impressed us all is how throughout his career he has combined cutting-edge research, often in very difficult environments, with the interests of the whole global health community, particularly the interests of people living in the poorer countries of the world, whose perspectives and needs he has brought to the forefront of international attention and action. Very few people have achieved that.” Looking back on his career, Piot feels “privileged to have been associated with the two defining epidemics of our time, Ebola and AIDS”. In September, 1976, aged 27 years and just out of medical school, Piot “codiscovered”—with his team of microbiologists in the Institute
of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and with scientists working at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA—a hitherto unknown virus that was causing the deaths of hundreds of people in Zaire (now called Democratic Republic of the Congo). The discoverers named the virus after the Ebola river flowing near the epicentre of the epidemic.
“‘...throughout his career he has combined cutting-edge research, often in very difficult environments, with the... interests of people living in the poorer countries of the world...’” Piot’s subsequent research on the epidemiology of the virus brought him into frequent contact with Africa— and face to face with the continent’s burden of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). “I became really attracted to Africa”, he admits. “I felt that Africans were facing such huge health problems and health inequalities that I could make more of a difference there than in Europe.” In 1980, his interest in STD research propelled him to the USA, where he worked first at the CDC and then at the University of Washington. King Holmes, a world-renowned STD expert at the university, remembers Piot as “a great team builder, easy to get on with, very down to earth, very quick to assess the nature of a problem, not demanding but knowing how to get the best of a person”. The year is 1981. Piot is back in Antwerp reading a CDC report about five gay men suffering from an unknown syndrome that was wiping out their immune system. The syndrome was AIDS and was to become Piot’s consuming passion
over the next three decades. In 1983, he assembled an international team, which discovered a full-blown epidemic of AIDS in men and women in central Africa. “This was the beginning of an extremely productive period of research, mainly in Zaire and Kenya, that gave us a wealth of basic knowledge about HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa”, Piot recalls. In 1995, with HIV infecting 20 million people, he became the first executive director of UNAIDS, a position that allowed him to campaign unceasingly against the denial, injustice, and stigma undercutting the battle against AIDS. “One thing I just could not accept was that people in poor countries were not receiving the life-saving antiretroviral drugs because of their price”, he says. His campaigning was instrumental in lowering the cost of treatment from US$14 000 per person per year, when the drugs first came out in 1996, to less than $300 by the time Piot left UNAIDS in 2008. “My major regret, though, is the time it took to achieve this result”, he admits. “In 1996, we had the drugs in the West. It took about 10 years before a million Africans could benefit from it.” Mark Dybul, who heads the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and who nominated Piot for the Gairdner award, has no regrets about his choice. “Peter clearly achieved his objective to put AIDS at the top of the world’s political agenda. All in all, given his long history as a researcher, his incredible instinct for seeing the big picture, and his understanding of what science can do to advance public health, it would be hard to find someone more qualified to receive this award.”
John Maurice www.thelancet.com Vol 385 March 28, 2015
