近日，病毒獵手維爾特·伊恩·利普金來華考察疫情，並接受了CGTN的專訪，就新型冠狀病毒疫情展開討論。
據利普金教授介紹，疫苗是最好的治療方法，但由於研製時間較長，現階段當務之急是通過診斷，從現有的藥物和治療中尋找有效的治療方法。
他認為，新型冠狀病毒感染性比SARS強，對經濟的衝擊也更大，但死亡率遠低於SARS。
他同時肯定了中國政府從SARS中總結的經驗及科研能力，但仍然強調關閉野生動物市場的必要性。
2003年，利普金教授就曾來北京協助中國抗擊SARS，指導相關研究，並贈送了1萬個檢測試劑盒。此外，他還與中科院和中國疾病預防控制中心開展科研合作，在建立上海巴斯德研究所、廣州生物醫藥研究院、中國疾病預防控制中心病原發現聯合實驗室等工作中做出了重要貢獻。
A specialist known as one of the world's leading "virus hunters" is in China, to help contain the coronavirus epidemic.
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin is the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity of Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
Dr. Lipkin came to China 17 years ago to help fight SARS.
His week-long trip this time included Guangzhou and Beijing, without going to Wuhan. "I've not been to Wuhan, I'll not be able to get back into the U.S. very easily, and that would impede my ability to do the work. Although I would like to have gone to Wuhan, unfortunately logistics made that impossible," he says.
"I'm assembling a formal written report that will be forwarded to the central government at the request of various members there," says the professor.
He says no drug have been approved for the treatment so far, and the problem with making vaccine for this virus is that by the time we have the vaccine it's six months minimum to a year. Most of their focus right now is trying to find ways to develop diagnostic tests that can be used to figure out who should be isolated, how long they should be isolated and make decisions about whether there are drugs and anti-bodies that could be used even now to reduce fatality.
"Within the next two to three weeks, we'll have diagnostic tests that would allow us to not only figure out who has been exposed, but where they shed virus, how long they shed virus, when they began to shed virus, which will allow us to make decisions about how to isolate people," Lipkin says.
He also says that China did learn a lesson from SARS 17 years ago. "We have much better science, we have more scientists, we have laboratories where people can study infectious diseases. We have better diagnostic tools and sequencing, look at how quickly this infectious agent was identified. But we still have ways to go, and the first place to start with, is to shut the wild animal markets," he says.
Assessing the current situation, he says "Is this virus spreading more rapidly than SARS? Probably. Is it going to cause more economic damage than SARS? Probably. Is it going to kill as many people as SARS? Probably not. Those are predictions. I don't know that I can tell the future."
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