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Seated before us is 54-year-old Dr. Sriyal Malik Peiris in person at the Colombo Plaza Hotel, who had kindly agreed to meet us on Thursday morning though he had flown into the country in the wee hours and had not even had a few hours' sleep. "I am better known as Sriyal in Sri Lanka but it was a tongue-twister for foreigners, that's how I came to be called by my second name Malik," he laughs setting the tone for the interview. Utterly relaxed and willing to repeat and spell any unfamiliar name, he speaks passionately about his work and his childhood. Yes, his childhood was in Kandy, with a father (the late J.W.L. Peiris who concluded his career as Deputy Director of Research, Department of Agriculture) who was heavily involved in plant research and was instrumental in increasing the paddy yield in Sri Lanka, at a time when the country was importing rice. His school career at St. Anthony's College, Katugastota further fostered his love of research with his teachers not only telling them what was in the textbooks but also encouraging argument and debate on topics ranging from politics to science to life. Later it was medical school in Peradeniya itself and a brief period of working as a young doctor at several hospitals before giving into the yearnings of his soul and getting back into the academic and research field as a lecturer at the Department of Microbiology of the Peradeniya University. The suggestion which decided his destiny came from Prof. S. Arsecularatne. "He told me to take up virology because there were many studying bacteriology," he recalls with gratitude. Later Prof. Arsecularatne became his father-in- law. His work there was soon followed by post-graduate studies at the University of Oxford and a short stint of about five years in England before getting back to Peradeniya to set up a virology lab there in the early ’80s. "To this day I feel that period was the most rewarding and exciting. We had to set it up from scratch," he says. That was also the time he began researching on arbo-viruses or insect-borne viruses such as Japanese Encephalitis and dengue. He needed a partner who was studying insects and found the ideal in a schoolmate, Prashantha Amerasinghe. Together with another scientist researching parasites such as malaria, Prof. Manel Wijesundera, they set up a study programme on virus-insects-parasites. "We were studying the impact of the Mahaweli programme - clearing of jungles and setting up of new schemes - on mosquito-borne viruses in 1984-85 when there was a major outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis in Anuradhapura with 500 people being affected. Working closely with A'pura physician Dr. Tilak Abeysekera we studied the exact epidemiology of the infection. The relationship between pig-mosquito-human. We used to catch the mosquitoes and isolate the virus," said Dr. Peiris adding that all this work has been published internationally. It was his first exposure to a major outbreak, which was followed by a bigger one in 1987 of the same disease. By this time he was also actively working with Dr. Kamini Mendis of the Colombo Medical Faculty on a vaccine for malaria. Later it was back to the UK to work as a Consultant Virologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle which Dr. Peiris dubs as a "mixed blessing", for a large proportion of his time was spent trying to manage the budget cuts imposed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The time had come for him to move on in 1995 and it was the prospect of setting up the virus lab of the Queen Mary Teaching Hospital of the University of Hong Kong that tempted him. That was where he was when he and his dedicated team faced two major health challenges. One shook Hong Kong in 1997 and the other the whole world just this year. "Though the numbers were small, when 18 got the avian or bird flu and six died in ’97, there was panic in Hong Kong," says Dr. Peiris who was part of the team, which identified the virus as one picked up from live chickens. People moving in and out of chicken markets spread the infection all over Hong Kong. Once the virus was identified, the authorities were quick to act, killing every single chicken in markets and farms in Hong Kong amounting to 1.5 million. The bird flu outbreak came to a halt before it could take off. "Those were difficult times for the people there because chicken is like their staple food," says Dr. Peiris. 2003 saw the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a pneumonia-linked disease, causing panic and fear all over the world. The reports of an outbreak trickled in from the Chinese Guangdong province adjoining Hong Kong. It was the time of the Chinese New Year and there was a lot of movement between the two states. In a family that had gone over to China, the daughter died there and when they came back the father died in Hong Kong. The brother too had it but he recovered. "But these cases, somewhat led us astray. We isolated the virus and found it to be the avian one in this particular case," says Dr. Peiris. After weeks of long days and long nights, going home at 2 in the morning and coming back to the microscopes at 6 a.m. again, it was time for the team headed by Dr. Peiris as Professor of Microbiology to shout 'Eureka!' - they had isolated or discovered the "unusual" virus. It was a long and arduous road - they didn't want to make a mistake and jump to the wrong conclusion. "Within the final week everything fell into place. We scientifically established that it was the SARS-associated coronavirus on March 21," says Dr. Peiris. The team, originally made up of five working in the lab had by now grown, being strengthened by other researchers working on different areas and new staff being recruited to tackle SARS. There was hardly time for rejoicing because the patients were flowing in and the need was to find diagnostic tests, which they did. More work lies on the lab table back in Hong Kong. How the virus causes disease, the mechanism and, of course, producing a vaccine to curb this killer. Amidst the satisfaction gained from a job well done, Dr. Peiris has a twinge of guilt. "I have hardly spent any time with my family," says this father of a 17-year-old daughter (who sat for her A/Ls through SARS and is now studying in the UK) and 12-year-old son, adding that he has resolved to spend more time with his family next year. Don’t
give up on research For Dr. Peiris there was a choice, for he had also been invited to a meeting of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. His choice, of course, was evident and later confirmed by that fact that he is a lover of Sri Lanka's history who visits the country at least twice a year with forays into the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Sigiriya. He has a word of advice for Sri Lankans, "Don't forget the importance of research. It is something we should treasure and develop here. There are a number of excellent people working in this field, but sometimes their work is not valued. We tend to question, 'What's the point?' That should not be so." People have become complacent about keeping infectious diseases at bay since the 1960s with the advent of antibiotics. "It is true that smallpox has been eradicated and polio will be too. But germs are pretty smart. They mutate and become resistant to antibiotics and there is the imminent danger of other major outbreaks. There is also the risk of bio-terror where they can be used wilfully and bio-error in labs while doing research. That's why microbiology needs to be strengthened and young people encouraged to get into this field." |
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