On January 30, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) that originated in Wuhan, China. Healthcare experts have warned that Covid-19 could rapidly spread, if not properly contained, and many governments around the world have begun to take precautionary measures to ensure public health safety. Amid the international concern and heightened fears about the disease, what is fact and what is fiction? The Asia Society Hong Kong Center brings you regular updates on the coronavirus story in Hong Kong that has reverberations elsewhere in the world. We are pleased to present on-the-ground public health experts and internationally renowned specialists with the latest facts and evidence-based findings regarding this epidemic outbreak. In episode 5, hear from Prof. Baron Peter Piot, KCMG MD PhD FRCP FMedSci, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases and Handa Professor of Global Health. S. Alice Mong, Executive Director of Asia Society Hong Kong Center will moderate the discussion. 

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Professor Baron Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Handa Professor of Global Health 

Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Handa Professor of Global Health.  He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. 

A clinician and microbiologist by training, Professor Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, and subsequently led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, women’s health and infectious diseases, largely in Africa. He is the first Chair of the UK Strategic Coherence of ODA-funded Research  Board, Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation US,  Vice-Chair of the board of the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund in Tokyo, and a board member for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). He is a past president of the International AIDS Society. In 1995 he was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium, and in 2016 was awarded a UK honorary knighthood KCMG. Peter Piot has received numerous awards, including the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award (2015), the Robert Koch Gold Medal (2015), the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2014), and the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research (2013), and was named a 2014 TIME Person of the Year (The Ebola Fighters). He has published over 600 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memoir, No Time to Lose, translated into Japanese and Korean.