"But while searching the archives, it was discovered that the late President Houphouët-Boigny had considered creating a Pasteur Institute as early as 1962 just two years after independence."

"I believe the President at the time had many other priorities, but he was determined to provide Côte d’Ivoire with a Pasteur Institute."

"The first directors were French. I am the sixth director."

"There have been two French and four Ivorians."

"With the support of the government and development partners, we were able to create advanced technological platforms. *The Pasteur Institute has been heavily solicited over the past ten years."

"There was the yellow fever epidemic, dengue outbreaks, the H1N1 pandemic flu, the H5N1 avian flu, and the suspected Ebola outbreak which fortunately did not reach Côte d’Ivoire and finally the COVID-19 pandemic."

"These past ten years have been very demanding for the Pasteur Institute of Côte d’Ivoire."

"My primary hope is to make people understand that antibiotics are not candy."

"When the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread in Côte d’Ivoire, the first protocol against the virus included antibiotics, which encouraged overuse and increased the risk of harmful misuse of these products."

"It is therefore essential to emphasize that antibiotics have a specific use, which must remain strictly limited."

"If we do not continue working on this, we will never have a vaccine... it's incredibly important that we keep working."

"I believe that curiosity, integrity and generosity are the key attributes for good scientists. You need to be addicted to asking and answering questions! In doing this, we get to discover new things, either small details or big leaps in knowledge, on a daily basis - which is incredibly wonderful."

"No, I don’t miss being in the lab. For me, the exciting part of science is working out what the question is, and how to answer it. I am very privileged - I get to ask questions, and have a wonderful team who generates data to answer them."

"African scientists have to be resilient - it’s a tough career anywhere, but especially in Africa where we face many additional challenges. But it’s essential that we African scientists use our skills and determination to do good research that is relevant to our communities."

"For vaccine development presently, the South African AIDS Vaccine initiative has no money."

"It might have to do with how my mother was, and I observed her dealing with people who were different and as matter of fact and equal to anybody else, as deserving of respect and kindness. People have asked me over the years, "How do you work with people who are differently abled?" I always say,"

"Everybody underestimates. And then there are people that think, am I a freak? Am I kinky? Is this strange? And I always say, "No." Find the person who loves to do what you love to do, and then you'll have the best relationship."

"If you're with somebody you feel is judging you when you make a suggestion, give it a try if you're really attracted to the person, but I wouldn't stick around for that."

"I just have to learn what their special needs are. And what I'm going to do with them, I do with everybody. I want to find out what they're capable of, not what they're not capable of -- I mean, we know what they're not capable of, but it's so different for everyone, even if you don't have a physical disability."

"It's hard for anybody. There are people who are comfortable -- I don't know what the percentage of the people who are comfortable or are not comfortable [is], with people being differently able. I wrote in my book"

"I've been in this (infectious diseases) business for 30 years. I've been through MERS, SARS, Ebola, the first Gulf war and the second, and I don't recall anything like this (Israeli being into unnecessary panic due to COVID-19). There's unnecessary, exaggerated panic. We have to calm people down. People are thinking that there's a kind of virus, it's in the air, it's going to attack every one of us, and whoever is attacked is going to die. That's not the way it is at all. It's not in the air. Not everyone (who is infected) dies. Most of them will get better and won't even know they were sick, or will have a bit of mucus."

"Diseases that come from wildlife account for more than 65% of all emerging infectious diseases."

"The (Iranian) government failed to quarantine and disinfect all cities (from SARS-CoV-2) before it was too late. We must comply with the health rules to protect from the (COVID-19) disease."

"We have already gone a long way along this path through vaccination. We must now complete this process so that we can reach the endemic phase in the course of 2022 and declare the pandemic state to be over."

"Coronaviruses include a group of RNA viruses of medical and veterinary importance, all of which are characterized by spherical, enveloped virus particles with prominent surface projections, resembling the corona of the sun. They infect various animal species, causing respiratory, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases. In humans, coronaviruses have been associated with common colds, diarrhea, and possibly multiple sclerosis. The prototypical coronaviruses include avian infectious bronchitis virus (!BV), mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), porcine transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), bovine coronavirus (BCV), human coronavirus (HCV), feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV), rat sialodacryoadenitis virus (SDAV), turkey coronavirus (TCV), rabbit coronavirus (RCV), and several viruses of other animal species."

"Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) contains a circular, viroid-like RNA genome, the only animal viral RNA of its kind. It possesses a ribozyme activity, which can autocatalytically cleave and ligate itself. The ribozyme has a unique structural requirement different from other known ribozymes."

"One scientific discovery is a gift from the accumulated work of hundreds of researchers. Collaboration is crucial because viruses are smarter than researchers."

"We should have done more (COVID-19) diagnostic tests in Lombardy where there was a big nucleus. There is no sense in trying to go to the supermarket once a week. You have to limit your time out, isolation is the key thing."

"We don't really know enough about this (COVID-19) disease to be sure what it means when the viral load decreases in the throat, for instance."

"It's the typical sloppy coronavirus immunity. ... The second infection is a mild infection."

"They have no evidence snakes can be infected by this new (COVID-19) coronavirus and serve as a host for it. There's no consistent evidence of coronaviruses in hosts other than mammals and Aves (birds)."

"It's still unclear whether that takes place (that COVID-19 can spread before people show sings of being infected). But if it does, that might explain why the disease is spreading so quickly."

"It was important to make the (COVID-19) disease notifiable. Although it did not appear to be as deadly as the previous SARS and MERS strains, there was still much to learn about it."

"I don't think there's any need to panic (because of the COVID-19 pandemic). We manage these things the same as we manage influenza. The sensible thing (to do) at this point is to increase awareness of what is going on overseas. We can't treat the virus at the present time, so what we can do is use simple personal protection and public health interventions ... should it enter New Zealand."

"In six months, it's impossible to produce a vaccine against the (COVID-19) coronavirus. It takes a year to develop a vaccine. As for Thailand, we have no staff, no people who are experts in this field. But we expect that China will be able to develop a vaccine within one year. The best we can do is to treat patients based on their symptoms and diagnosis, and develop examination methods which are rapid and accurate."

"Take a look at the death toll now (as of 5 February 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak), there are almost no children. A nine-month-old baby is the youngest known patient, and the baby's still alive. The youngest patients who died are about 30 years old. Most of them have congenital diseases, such as brain disorders, heart diseases, lung diseases, diabetes or cancer. There are patients who are over 80 years old. At first, more than half of them were over 80 years old. Many cases are 89. If you ask me, some 89-year-old people happen to fall and die. So, don't panic about the number of fatalities. A majority of them have congenital diseases, pneumonia or influenza. Their depth of breathing is lower than normal, and there's a possibility that they want to eliminate excess phlegm. This can pose a life-threatening risk. Most fatalities are not young people. There's not much difference from the common influenza. If people who are 89 or 90 years old have influenza, that's not good."

"Because these (SARS-CoV-2) viruses have not been circulating in humans before, specific immunity to these viruses is absent in humans."