Ask The Disease Specialist: Why Is It So Hard To Beat The Plague?

An outbreak of the plague is growing in Madagascar. Air Seychelles announced that it has canceled all flights into the country after a traveler returned to the Seychelles with the illness — despite World Health Organization guidance against travel restrictions because "the risk of international spread of plague appears very low." WHO has sent enough antibiotics to treat more than 5,000 people who've come down with the disease and a team of five people as well.

We checked in with Dr. Daniel Bausch, a virologist who was deeply involved in the response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. Now, as director of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, he deploys health responders and epidemiologists to places experiencing bad outbreaks. In the last five months, he has sent teams to help tackle bouts of cholera in Ethiopia, meningitis in Nigeria, waterborne diseases in Sierra Leone after some terrible landslides and now plague in Madagascar.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.