The global spread of the coronavirus is “much, much worse” than seen with Ebola — which, unlike COVID-19, “requires very close contact for transmission,” according to the professor who helped discover the earlier illness.

Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Sky News that the coronavirus pandemic has the potential to turn into a “really bad situation.”

“This is much, much worse than Ebola,” he said. “Ebola requires very close contact for transmission.

People are very scared of it, but frankly it is usually very contained. There are some exceptions. But because (COVID-19) is a respiratory transmitted virus, that makes it so worrisome.

“It’s very infectious because there’s so much virus in your throat,” continued Piot, who co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. “So this is literally something you can catch by talking to somebody, which is not the case with other viruses.”

Ebola’s average death rate is 50 percent, while it is around 1 percent for the coronavirus, though the true fatality rate is not yet known.

Piot, who said the world is entering a “new phase” in the coronavirus outbreak described President Trump’s decision to impose a travel ban on flights to the US from Europe as a “pretty bizarre” move.

“The US has in-country transmission, lots of cases,” he told Sky News “I can only think that this is a political decision. It’s hard to imagine that this would have any impact.”

He said the “top priority” now is protecting the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, who are most at risk from the coronavirus.

“I think we should think carefully about who to visit, who to admit as visitors even into homes for the elderly and care and nursing homes,” he said.

Piot said it was possible that an “effective therapy” for the coronavirus might be available next month — but he warned that it would take “much longer” to develop a full-fledged vaccine.