The Belgian microbiologist who co-discovered the Ebola virus has accused the World Health Organisation of dithering in reacting to the deadly epidemic and accused the international community of "hysteria."
Peter Piot said that while an initial delay in confirming the outbreak could be expected, there was no excuse for waiting a further five months before acknowledging the extent of the crisis.
"It took three months for the WHO to find out there was an Ebola outbreak. That I understand. Guinea had a poor laboratory infrastructure," he told Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera in an interview due to air on Saturday.
"I have much more of a problem with the fact that it took five months for WHO -- for the international health regulations committee, for that's what it is -- to declare this a state of emergency.
"It took a thousand dead Africans and two Americans who were repatriated to the US because they were infected. There's no excuse for that... It took too long, we wasted too much precious time."
Authorities in Guinea and the WHO said on March 24 that since January the west African country had recorded 87 suspected cases of viral haemorrhagic fever, including 61 deaths.
Scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirmed it was Ebola.
But the WHO didn't declare the outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern" until August 8.
Piot said the slow response to crisis was compounded by a United States-led over-reaction, according to an Al Jazeera statement quoting from the interview sent to AFP in Dakar.
