WASHINGTON (AP) – An Associated Press investigation has found that an American company that bills itself as a pioneer in identifying emerging epidemics made a series of costly mistakes during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa.
San Francisco-based company Metabiota Inc. was criticized for feuding with fellow responders, contributing to misdiagnosed Ebola cases and repeatedly misreading the trajectory of the virus, according to internal emails from the World Health Organization and other health agencies.
The government laboratory that Metabiota shared with Tulane University in eastern Sierra Leone misdiagnosed several patients with Ebola and one WHO scientist told colleagues in an email that it was “a situation that WHO can no longer endorse.”
Metabiota founder Nathan Wolfe contested the claims and said his staffers performed admirably during the Ebola disaster.