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You may never have heard[br]of Kenema, Sierra Leone

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or Arua, Nigeria.

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But I know them as two of the most[br]extraordinary places on earth.

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In hospitals there, there's a community[br]of nurses, physicians and scientists

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that have been quietly battling

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one of the deadliest threats[br]to humanity for years:

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Lassa virus.

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Lassa virus is a lot like Ebola.

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It can cause a severe fever[br]and can often be fatal.

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But these individuals,[br]they risk their lives every day

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to protect the individuals[br]in their communities,

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and by doing so, protect us all.

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But one of the most extraordinary things[br]I learned about them

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on one of my first visits[br]out there many years ago

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was that they start each morning --

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these challenging, extraordinary days[br]on the front lines -- by singing.

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They gather together,[br]and they show their joy.

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They show their spirit.

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And over the years,

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from year after year as I've visited them[br]and they've visited me,

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I get to gather with them and I sing

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and we write and we love it,

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because it reminds us that we're not[br]just there to pursue science together;

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we're bonded through a shared humanity.

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And that of course, as you can imagine,[br]becomes extremely important,

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even essential, as things begin to change.

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And that changed a great deal[br]in March of 2014,

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when the Ebola outbreak[br]was declared in Guinea.

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This is the first outbreak in West Africa,

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near the border[br]of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

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And it was frightening,[br]frightening for us all.

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We had actually suspected for some time

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that Lassa and Ebola were more[br]widespread than thought,

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and we thought it could[br]one day come to Kenema.

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And so members of my team[br]immediately went out

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and joined Dr. Humarr Khan[br]and his team there,

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and we set up diagnostics to be able[br]to have sensitive molecular tests

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to pick up Ebola if it came[br]across the border

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and into Sierra Leone.

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We'd already set up this kind[br]of capacity for Lassa virus,

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we knew how to do it,

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the team is outstanding.

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We just had to give them[br]the tools and place to survey for Ebola.

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And unfortunately, that day came.

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On May 23, 2014, a woman checked[br]into the maternity ward at the hospital,

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and the team ran[br]those important molecular tests

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and they identified the first[br]confirmed case of Ebola in Sierra Leone.

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This was an exceptional[br]work that was done.

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They were able to diagnose[br]the case immediately,

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to safely treat the patient

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and to begin to do contact tracing[br]to follow what was going on.

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It could've stopped something.

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But by the time that day came,

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the outbreak had already[br]been breeding for months.

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With hundreds of cases, it had already[br]eclipsed all previous outbreaks.

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And it came into Sierra Leone[br]not as that singular case,

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but as a tidal wave.

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We had to work[br]with the international community,

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with the Ministry of Health, with Kenema,[br]to begin to deal with the cases,

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as the next week brought 31,

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then 92, then 147 cases --[br]all coming to Kenema,

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one of the only places in Sierra Leone[br]that could deal with this.

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And we worked around the clock[br]trying to do everything we could,

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trying to help the individuals,[br]trying to get attention,

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but we also did one other simple thing.

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From that specimen that we take[br]from a patient's blood to detect Ebola,

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we can discard it, obviously.

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The other thing we can do is, actually,[br]put in a chemical and deactivate it,

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so just place it into a box[br]and ship it across the ocean,

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and that's what we did.

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We sent it to Boston, where my team works.

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And we also worked around the clock[br]doing shift work, day after day,

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and we quickly generated 99 genomes[br]of the Ebola virus.

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This is the blueprint -- the genome[br]of a virus is the blueprint.

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We all have one.

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It says everything that makes up us,

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and it tells us so much information.

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The results of this kind of work[br]are simple and they're powerful.

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We could actually take[br]these 99 different viruses,

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look at them and compare them,

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and we could see, actually,[br]compared to three genomes

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that had been previously[br]published from Guinea,

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we could show that the outbreak[br]emerged in Guinea months before,

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once into the human population,

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and from there had been transmitting[br]from human to human.

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Now, that's incredibly important

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when you're trying to figure out[br]how to intervene,

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but the important thing[br]is contact tracing.

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We also could see that as the virus[br]was moving between humans,

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it was mutating.

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And each of those mutations[br]are so important,

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because the diagnostics, the vaccines,

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the therapies that we're using,

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are all based on that genome[br]sequence, fundamentally --

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that's what drives it.

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And so global health experts[br]would need to respond,

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would have to develop,

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to recalibrate everything[br]that they were doing.

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But the way that science works,[br]the position I was in at that point

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is, I had the data,

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and I could have worked[br]in a silo for many, many months,

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analyzed the data carefully, slowly,

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submitted the paper for publication,[br]gone through a few back-and-forths,

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and then finally when the paper came out,[br]might release that data.

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That's the way the status quo works.

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Well, that was not going to work[br]at this point, right?

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We had friends on the front lines

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and to us it was just obvious[br]that what we needed is help,

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lots of help.

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So the first thing we did is,

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as soon as the sequences[br]came off the machines,

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we published it to the web.

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We just released it to the whole world[br]and said, "Help us."

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And help came.

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Before we knew it,

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we were being contacted[br]from people all over,

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surprised to see the data[br]out there and released.

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Some of the greatest[br]viral trackers in the world

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were suddenly part of our community.

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We were working together[br]in this virtual way,

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sharing, regular calls, communications,

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trying to follow the virus[br]minute by minute,

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to see ways that we could stop it.

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And there are so many ways[br]that we can form communities like that.

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Everybody, particularly when the outbreak[br]started to expand globally,

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was reaching out to learn,[br]to participate, to engage.

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Everybody wants to play a part.

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The amount of human capacity[br]out there is just amazing,

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and the Internet connects us all.

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And could you imagine that instead[br]of being frightened of each other,

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that we all just said, "Let's do this.

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Let's work together,[br]and let's make this happen."

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But the problem is that the data[br]that all of us are using,

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Googling on the web, is just too limited[br]to do what we need to do.

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And so many opportunities[br]get missed when that happens.

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So in the early part[br]of the epidemic from Kenema,

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we'd had 106 clinical records[br]from patients,

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and we once again made that[br]publicly available to the world.

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And in our own lab, we could show[br]that you could take those 106 records,

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we could train computers to predict[br]the prognosis for Ebola patients

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to near 100 percent accuracy.

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And we made an app[br]that could release that,

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to make that available[br]to health-care workers in the field.

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But 106 is just not enough[br]to make it powerful,

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to validate it.

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So we were waiting for more data[br]to release that.

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and the data has still not come.

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We are still waiting, tweaking away,

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in silos rather than working together.

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And this just -- we can't accept that.

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Right? You, all of you,[br]cannot accept that.

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It's our lives on the line.

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And in fact, actually,

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many lives were lost,[br]many health-care workers,

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including beloved colleagues of mine,

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five colleagues:[br]Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi,

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Dr. Humarr Khan, Alice Kovoma[br]and Mohamed Fullah.

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These are just five[br]of many health-care workers

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at Kenema and beyond

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that died while the world waited[br]and while we all worked,

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quietly and separately.

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See, Ebola, like all threats to humanity,

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it's fueled by mistrust[br]and distraction and division.

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When we build barriers amongst ourselves[br]and we fight amongst ourselves,

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the virus thrives.

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But unlike all threats to humanity,

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Ebola is one where[br]we're actually all the same.

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We're all in this fight together.

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Ebola on one person's doorstep[br]could soon be on ours.

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And so in this place[br]with the same vulnerabilities,

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the same strengths,[br]the same fears, the same hopes,

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I hope that we work together with joy.

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A graduate student of mine[br]was reading a book about Sierra Leone,

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and she discovered that the word "Kenema,"

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the hospital that we work at and the city[br]where we work in Sierra Leone,

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is named after the Mende word[br]for "clear like a river, translucent

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and open to the public gaze."

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That was really profound for us,

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because without knowing it,[br]we'd always felt

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that in order to honor the individuals[br]in Kenema where we worked,

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we had to work openly, we had to share[br]and we had to work together.

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And we have to do that.

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We all have to demand that[br]of ourselves and others --

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to be open to each other[br]when an outbreak happens,

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to fight in this fight together.

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Because this is not the first[br]outbreak of Ebola,

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it will not be the last,

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and there are many other microbes[br]out there that are lying in wait,

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like Lassa virus and others.

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And the next time this happens,

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it could happen in a city of millions,[br]it could start there.

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It could be something[br]that's transmitted through the air.

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It could even be[br]disseminated intentionally.

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And I know that that is frightening,[br]I understand that,

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but I know also,[br]and this experience shows us,

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that we have the technology[br]and we have the capacity

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to win this thing,

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to win this and have[br]the upper hand over viruses.

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But we can only do it if we do it together

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and we do it with joy.

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So for Dr. Khan

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and for all of those who sacrificed[br]their lives on the front lines

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in this fight with us always,

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let us be in this fight with them always.

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And let us not let the world be defined

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by the destruction wrought by one virus,

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but illuminated by billions[br]of hearts and minds

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working in unity.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)