Ways new diseases emerge — and what we can do about them.
From forests and farms to our own back yards, there’s a lot we can do to reduce future risks of pandemic outbreaks
As the world grapples with COVID-19, virologists know that other potential pandemics are waiting in the wings.
“I think we will get a wave of new zoonotic diseases emerging, a mixture of old and new ones. Animals have thousands of viruses. Some of them are now familiar, like Ebola and Marburg and avian flu. These will continue to emerge in predictably unpredictable ways and places. But some will emerge which we did not know about. The worst may be yet to come,”
As the world grapples with COVID-19, virologists know that other potential pandemics are waiting in the wings, able to do similar damage in the wrong circumstances. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), animals can transmit 60% of infectious diseases that have been found in humans, and 75% of new or emerging such diseases that originate in animals. Nearly all are triggered or made worse by human interference with natural environments.