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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Ebola Outbreak;U.S. Ambassador to OSCE Speaks About MH-17 Crash Site Access

Aired July 30, 2014 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm joined now by Daniel Baer. He's America's ambassador to the OSCE, and he joins me live from Vienna.

Ambassador Baer, it's great to have you on again. Just -- and I imagine our viewers share this, the amazement, the shock, that two weeks after this plane went down, you, your organization, other teams, particularly the Dutch who lost so many citizens in this crash, till cannot get to this site.

What's going to change that?

DANIEL BAER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO OSCE: Obviously for the first several days the OSCE special monitoring mission was able to get to the site even though they were greeted by a drunken hoard of separatists the first time, but incrementally, day by day, access improved.

They were able to get there with some first remains recovery experts last week. For the last few days, they haven't been able to get to the site itself, partly because the route into the site, they've been concerned about the safety on that route. They obviously are working out of Donetsk and that's at some distance from the site itself.

My understanding is that they've been working very closely with the government of Ukraine to try to identify a safe route, a safe road, possibly alternate routes, into the site so that he can get those experts to the site as soon as possible, because obviously, you know, the tragedy of the shoot down of this flight is compounded from any of these families mourning lost ones by the fact they have been unable to get closure by making sure the crash can be properly investigated and that the remains can be recovered.

SCIUTTO: Also an investigation so the international community can get the final answers as to what happened.

Are you saying you're concerned that your team aren't safe getting to the site?

BAER: The OSCE's monitoring mission has been working very closely with the government of Ukraine. The chief monitor, Ambassador Apakin of Turkey, met today with the minister from Ukraine. They had, what I understand, a productive meeting.

Obviously the separatists have continued their violent acts in the environments of the site and that makes getting to the site itself particularly difficult. Now there's a relatively large team, dozens of experts on the ground from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, et cetera. You know, that large group needs to be safe in order to conduct the very important investigation and recovery work they need to do.

SCIUTTO: Now, it's been nearly two weeks. It will be two weeks tomorrow since the plane went down.

By the time you do get there, you and other teams, are you concerned that much of the evidence will already be lost as a result of this delay?

BAER: Well, concerned, yes, in that the site was tampered with, adulterated, molested by the separatists in those first few days afterwards. We know it was picked over.

The OSCE was able to report that even a saw was taken to some parts of the wreckage, et cetera. Personal belongings have been harvested and stolen from the site. The remains were not properly treated. All of those things are very concerning.

On the other hand, the shoot down of this flight was a tragedy, but it's not a mystery. We are confident that it was shot down by an SA-11 missile fired from separatist-controlled territory, and the importance of the investigation is putting together the additional pieces that give a full picture partly so that justice can be served and that's something the families who lost so many loved ones deserve as well.

SCIUTTO: Right. Now it's about building the evidence to take people to justice here.

Thanks very much, Ambassador Daniel Baer, the head of one of the many groups still trying to get to that crash scene.

Now Ebola is scary, and sometimes the facts can get lost in the hype surrounding a virus like this.

This hour, we're bringing you the facts about how this disease started, how it is spread, and what the world can do to respond this outbreak.

Up next, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us with some answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That once somebody starts to become sick, any, even miniscule, microscopic amount of body fluid from that person would infect other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Ebola cases are spreading. Sierra Leone's leading doctor in the fight has now died from the very virus. Just last month, the doctor talked about the challenges he was facing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SHEIKH EMAR KHAN, VICTIM OF EBOLA VIRUS: Whenever somebody has this kind of presentation, they should come.

Don't forget, by the time you have one contract the disease, people will take you for dead. Avoiding hiding, taking care. Don't forget, by the time people are dead with the Ebola, they are more infectious than all. If they take care on their own, ten more will be affected.

It's about denial. It's about the negative attitude initially from our people. For some reason, we try to spin it as bet as possible to our people.

Reaching them through their communities, for them to understand that this disease is natural, it's not a mystery, it's a disease that somebody can acquire, and if only they could listen appropriately to our advice, we could break the chain of transmission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Dr. Khan was just 39-years-old. His death is another reminder of the dangers to medical teams treating this disease.

This is a blog entry from a nurse working with Ebola patients in West Africa. "To protect ourselves, we must be completely covered from head to toe. We are all checked prior to entering the unit to confirm that there is no skin exposed. Before entering, we then pray as a team."

Just one window into the people on the front lines of this virus.

We're joining -- joining us now, CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. You've done your own work, Dr. Gupta, I know, on the frontlines of this, seeing victims up close and the teams treating them.

As you've seen this happen, how concerned should Americans be that the problem that is now largely confined to West Africa will cross the ocean, in effect, and start threatening Americans?

GUPTA: Well, Jim, think there's sort of two parts to that question. One is, you know, how likely is Ebola, the virus, able to transport itself across the ocean and end up in a place like the United States or Great Britain or any other country really around the world?

And the second part of that question is, how likely is it to cause outbreaks or some of the problems you're seeing now in Africa?

I think the first part of the question is, yes, I think someone is likely to show up in one of these countries with Ebola at some point. It's the world in which we live nowadays, Jim.

And from the time someone is exposed to the virus to the time they get sick, it can be as long as 21 days. You could travel anywhere around the world in that point. But in the -- places like United States or Britain or any other countries talking about this a lot today, you also have many more resources in terms of taking care of the person. You have many more resources in terms of isolating the person. It is not the same as the remote villages of Africa where a lot of these cases are taking place now.

So I think the virus could come, but I don't think it's going to spread. It's not going to cause the same sorts of problems in that regard.

SCIUTTO: That's a great point to make to people at home, just to manage their level of concern. It's a point similar that Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIH made on our air just a short time ago.

But I wondered, that presumes preparation, right? That doctors, medical professionals here spot this, they ask the right quest questions, did you travel to infected countries, et cetera.

Is it your sense that health care professionals here, doctors, et cetera, that they're getting that message. For instance, the doctors in an E.R. that might be the first to see the symptoms of this.

GUPTA: It's a great point, and sometimes the symptoms at least initially can be vague. They can look more like flu. You can have headache, fever. You can take a look at the list there.

But that at first glance could look like a lot of different things, so it is based on questionnaires and really putting the patient's history together. And really you do need people to be more in tune with that.

Ultimately, you can make the diagnosis by drawing blood, and then, you know, you're going to have your answer there for sure.

But, you know, we do deal in this country with infectious diseases from all over the world. Not Ebola, that has not come yet to the United States. But there were firsts for other diseases, and each time that happened, you have to recognize there's now these new diseases we have to keep on top of.

So I think, you know, there's some basic things. If a patient comes in who has an infectious disease, they typically get isolated so they can't get other people sick until we figure out what it is.

And I think that would be the same general protocol here. But awareness does have to be higher.

SCIUTTO: It's interesting. You know, as you put up those symptoms there, as you say, it looks like a lot of things, flu or even -- and I remember similar challenge with SARS or with bird flu -- that it's difficult to identify because those symptoms are so common.

I wonder, just quickly before I let you go, Dr. Gupta, are there other things Americans should consider doing now? For instance, where they do not travel? A lot of these countries involved are not a likely place for many Americans to travel, but there's a lot of business done in Nigeria these days.

Would you recommend to your patients they delay travel to, for instance, West Africa as a whole or other places that might be affected as this spreads?

GUPTA: I would not at this point. Even the gentleman, Mr. Sawyer, who you described on the program, he passed away in Nigeria. He had been caring for his sister who was found to have Ebola and likely got infected that way.

Doctors, health care professionals caring for patients, coming in close con account that, they're the ones most likely to get infected. If you travel to these places, if someone is sick, you should not be around them.

The way that this transmits is not through the air. It is from somebody who has the infection, is quite sick already, and some of their bodily fluid gets on somebody else. That's the way this is transmitted.

If you are a traveler, if you're somebody who's visiting that area that doesn't live there, you stay away from sick people, you stay away from hospitals, things like that, you should be OK.

And by the way, that's good advice regardless of whether you're in an Ebola epidemic or not.

SCIUTTO: Sure, sure. So, very close contact necessary.

GUPTA: That's right.

SCIUTTO: Great points as always, Dr. Gupta. We appreciate you joining us.

Why is the Ebola outbreak the deadliest ever? Ahead, we're going to look at how the beliefs of some of the people at the center of the epidemic may be contributing to the spread of this disease.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: One of the victims of this horrific Ebola epidemic is Patrick Sawyer, an American who had been traveling in West Africa and who died last Friday after visiting family in Liberia. His widow, Decontee Sawyer, spoke earlier to CNN about how he was infected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DECONTEE SAWYER, WIFE OF AMERICAN EBOLA VICTIM: He was visiting his sister. She was ill. And he helped care for her. And so he contracted it that way. They didn't know it was Ebola, because Ebola displays other symptoms, like malaria symptoms. So they thought she may have malaria. So he was helping. Had he known he, you know, would have definitely taken better precautions. MICHAELA PEREIRA, ANCHOR, CNN'S "NEW DAY": Well, and he likely -

right, that's a very good point, he would have taken more precautions. He likely wouldn't have traveled because there is the concern that he may have infected people on that flight that he took to Nigeria.

SAWYER: Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, that's a huge concern. That's a huge concern. So, yes.

PEREIRA: Let me ask you, I know you have family there in Liberia. Have you had a chance to talk to them about what they're being told about Ebola, how to protect themselves, steps to take or measures to take?

SAWYER: Well, they are all concerned about me keeping it together. So they're - when, you know, when we talk if - what they talk about. And I try to gear the conversation towards that, you know, them taking care of themselves and protecting themselves and I have my - my cousins and uncles that went to visit Liberia before. And so, you know, people go there to visit frequently. And I am trying to encourage people not to go and visit right now. If you're not part of the medical team or assistance, don't go, stay home. People are dying. Lives need to be saved. And if you're not part of that team, please get out of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: An American family struggling with Ebola. Patrick Sawyer also leaves behind three little girls aged just five, four and one. Decontee says she and her daughters are holding it together and she said she tried to tell her oldest that her daddy had gone to heaven.

So how did the Ebola virus begin infecting people? One of the experts who responded to the very first outbreak says it all began with a school teacher's trip to a local food market in West Africa. More on just how the disease spread from animals to humans right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: It's possible the world might never have heard of Ebola, and many hundreds of people might still be alive, had a single hospital in Africa not reused its needles decades ago. CNN's Isa Soares has more on Ebola's appalling, yet fascinating, history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PROF. DAVID HEYMANN, LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINE: The villages around Yabuku (ph) --

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was here in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, and in southern Sudan, that the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976.

HEYMANN: We used this register was early on to look through it in the periods when the outbreak was occurring to see if we could find any patients with a diagnosis that might be compatible with the diagnosis of Ebola. SOARES: Professor David Heymann was part of the team that investigated

the first outbreak and he says it all began with a school master who may have gotten infected after butchering an animal that he bought from a local market.

HEYMANN: He was treated in the outpatient department with nose bleed and dysentery with an injection. And in that outpatient department, there were only four needles and syringes. And those four needles and syringes were not sterilized between use. And in addition, they were taken into the maternity.

SOARES: So the first outbreak occurred in the hospital, where he says poor hygiene was common place. Within three months, the hospital closed down, 280 people had died, including many of its health workers.

HEYMANN: Health workers than began to get infected because they didn't know what the disease was. They became infected and they were the source of the virus to their family members and then out into the community. So this was an outbreak that shouldn't have occurred and wouldn't have occurred if hospital practices had been the way they should have been.

SOARES: Since then, there have been some 10 (ph) outbreaks of Ebola, 3,140 reported cases and more than 2,000 deaths. Throughout, the symptoms have remained the same, silent. But when it hits, it's swift and usually deadly.

SOARES (on camera): Four decades on since that first virus was discovered of Ebola. Why no cure?

HEYMANN: There are no drugs that are known to be effective against Ebola, but there's much research going on. So we understand a lot about the disease. We understand how it can be stopped. The mystery still remains as to where exactly it comes from in nature and how it gets from nature into humans.

SOARES (voice-over): It's critical then among other things to maintain a clean and disinfected environment. Quarantines and vigilance, experts say they're key to containing a killer virus.

Isa Soares, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Thank you for watching. I'm Jim Sciutto. And I'll be back tomorrow.

"WOLF," live from Jerusalem, comes right after a quick break.

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