Chief Researcher at the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Honorary Academician N. F. Gamalei Professor Viktor Zuev commented in an interview with RT on the possibility of a new fatal disease in the Congo.
Zuev stressed that it is worth waiting for more complete information.
At the same time, he noted that now they began to actively discover new diseases, which, of course, was influenced by the pandemic.
“The fact that now they will open much more energetically than until now, I have no doubt, because this“enthusiasm”is spurred on by the pandemic, it is quite obvious,” the expert said.
In his opinion, it all started with the British strain of the coronavirus, which is more contagious.
“We must actively seek, of course, and this is correct … We are increasingly beginning to visit various remote areas, thereby increasingly mixing our virological baggage with the baggage of people who live in these remote countries, and this, quite obviously, can lead to infection, and to recombinations … Let's wait for the experts to tell us in more detail, and then we will already react. What should be the reaction? There should be an interest in this. But don't be scared yourself and frighten the public,”Zuev said.
According to the virologist, so far the data provided is "rather sparse."
“Because there are many hemorrhagic fevers. Therefore, let's see if this pathogen belongs to the already known or is it something new,”the specialist concluded.
Earlier, the deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, Alexander Gorelov, after reports of the possibility of a new deadly disease in the Congo, said that it was too early to fear a new pandemic.
As noted in Rospotrebnadzor, at the moment experts are studying all sources and publications about this disease.
Professor Jean-Jacques Muembe-Tamfum, who helped detect the Ebola virus in 1976, warned of the possible emergence of new deadly diseases.
He also said that one of the patients in the west of the Congo showed symptoms similar to those of hemorrhagic fever. At the same time, analyzes did not show that she had traces of diseases known to science.