No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses

Peter Piot

May 2012 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

"An invaluable portrait of the evolution of international health in recent decades." —William Bynum, Wall Street Journal

When Peter Piot was in medical school, a professor warned, “There’s no future in infectious diseases. They’ve all been solved.” Fortunately, Piot ignored him, and the result has been an exceptional, adventure-filled career. In the 1970s, as a young man, Piot was sent to Central Africa as part of a team tasked with identifying a grisly new virus. Crossing into the quarantine zone on the most dangerous missions, he studied local customs to determine how this disease—the Ebola virus—was spreading. Later, Piot found himself in the field again when another mysterious epidemic broke out: AIDS. He traveled throughout Africa, leading the first international AIDS initiatives there. Then, as founder and director of UNAIDS, he negotiated policies with leaders from Fidel Castro to Thabo Mbeki and helped turn the tide of the epidemic. Candid and engrossing, No Time to Lose captures the urgency and excitement of being on the front lines in the fight against today’s deadliest diseases.

Ratings and reviews

I bought this book because of my interest in the current Ebola outbreak and because I am studying Microbiology. The techniques that are being tried right now in Africa are some of the ones pioneered by Peter Piot and the team back in the 70's. Anyone with an interest in either Microbiology or the current Ebola epidemic would, I think find this book both educational and informative. Piot puts a human face to the many workers both on the front line and behind the scenes of Infectious disease control A definite must read.

About the author

Peter Piot, MD, PhD, is the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, former undersecretary general of the United Nations, and former executive director of UNAIDS. He lives in London.