A UNC expert on global health and infectious diseases said Wednesday that the lessons learned from the AIDS outbreak during the `80s should guide today’s medical community when dealing with West Africa’s Ebola crisis.

“We ought to really learn a lesson from HIV,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, Chief of Infectious Diseases and Vice Chancellor for Global Health at the University of North Carolina. “We’re always going to have new microorganisms causing problems. We need to know the rules.”

Cohen sat down Wednesday afternoon with Drs. Adam Goldstein and Christy Page at the UNC Family Medicine auditorium for an episode of “Your Health,” a syndicated radio program presented by UNC Family Medicine and WCHL.

The infectious diseases expert answered questions about the spread of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, and the recent outbreak of Ebola.

Cohen reminded the studio audience, many of whom were medical students, that there was a time when researchers and disease specialists didn’t even know that AIDS was caused by a virus.

Back then, he said, much of the public discussion about AIDS was based on fear, rather then focusing on what he calls “the rules” of discussing a major disease outbreak. A similar situation is happening today, he said, with Ebola.

The rules are: What caused the disease? How is it transmitted? And what are the strategies to prevent transmission?

Cohen also reminded the audience that AIDS was once a death sentence, and now, a short time later, it is not.

“So we go in a very short window of time – ’85, a brand-new bug that’s just discovered; 2015, a person detected with HIV a treated effectively, early in disease, lives a normal life span.”

Scientists know that Ebola is transmitted by exposure to bodily fluids. Cohen said they’re trying to learn more about windows of contagion, and inanimate transmissions, caused by secretions that have been lying around on fabrics and other surfaces.

He said we can expect see the fastest deployment of prevention and treatment strategies in the history of the human species. Animal tests for drug treatments look promising, he added.

Still, the medical community is bracing for this to go on for a very long time.

Ebola is now in the exponential-spread phase. The CDC estimated 1.4 million cases in West Africa, perhaps over the next few months.

“There will be cases in Europe and the United States,” said Cohen, “and they’ll be constrained.”

Like most issues in the U.S. these days, Ebola has become politicized. Goldstein asked Cohen if the idea, proposed by some politicians, to prevent travel from West Africa has any merit.

“That’s only going to work of, then, travel from West Africa to Europe is constrained,” said Cohen. “If you put a finger in the dike of airlines going one place, then people will go another place and then show up, and it’ll be less prepared.”

You can hear the entire interview on “Your Health” with Drs. Adam Goldstein and Christie Page. The episode airs Saturday at 9 a.m.; Sunday at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.; and at 6 p.m. Monday on WCHL, 97.9 FM.

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