Book info

• Title
• Author Peter Piot
• Year
• Genres

Thoughts

This book chronicles a scientist, researcher and UN chiefs journey through two outbreaks - Ebola and Aids. I picked this book up long before the Ebola recurrence, but it seemed like an ideal time to read it.

The book is in two distinct halves - one of which I thought was brilliant, the other left me cold. The first half sees Piot start out as a young academic, researching diseases and epidemics. Reading how he travelled to Africa, saw first-hand the issues and dealt with working out where Ebola came from and how it spread was endlessly fascinating. How he combined the horrors of witnessing first hand devastation with trying to raise a young family is beyond me.

The second half starts with a similar story regarding Aids, but Piot quickly rises through the ranks of the UN and WHO, and from there the story becomes a political nightmare. Numerous global government agencies working together and against each other in this huge fight against Aids - noble and vital work, but not really interesting reading for me.

The book is definitely worth a look though, if only to get a glimpse of the tireless efforts behind the scenes of these awful viruses.

Rating: Unrated