Three actions are required to prevent future pandemics: better surveillance, wildlife and hunting management, and forest protection.
Three cost-effective actions have been provided by the researchers to help decision-makers prevent future pandemics. Two years after COVID-19 emerged, it is all the more necessary to stop the spread of diseases from animals into humans.// The three cost-effective actions, include: better surveillance of pathogens, better management of wildlife trade and hunting, and reduced deforestation.
‘The study provides a blueprint to forestall future pandemics on the 2nd anniversary of COVID-19, calls for better surveillance, wildlife and hunting management, and forest protection.’
The annual costs of these “primary pandemic prevention” actions (~$20 billion) are less than 5% of the lowest estimated value of lives lost from emerging infectious diseases every year, less than 10% of the economic costs, and provide substantial co-benefits.The research by 20 experts, published in Science Advances, was led by Dr. Aaron Bernstein, director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“If COVID-19 taught us anything, it is that testing, treatments, and vaccines can prevent deaths but they do not stop the spread of viruses across the globe and may never prevent the emergence of new pathogens. As we look to the future, we absolutely cannot rely on post-spillover strategies alone to protect us,” said Dr. Bernstein of Harvard Chan C-CHANGE.
“Spending only five cents on the dollar can help prevent the next tsunami of lives lost to pandemics by taking cost-effective actions that stop the wave from ever emerging, instead of paying trillions to pick up the pieces.”
Today, 3.3 million people are expected to die each year from viral zoonotic diseases. The estimated value of these lost lives is - at a minimum - $350 billion with an additional $212 billion in direct economic losses. This amount is based on lives lost from every new viral zoonosis—diseases that “spillover” into humans—since 1918 that killed at least 10 people.
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To address this, the paper recommends revising the World Health Organization’s “phases of infectious disease emergence” to include a specific phase for spillover. They further coin a new paradigm—“primary pandemic prevention”—to define actions that stamp out new diseases before they spread, rather than actions that address disease outbreaks after they occur.
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In addition to preventing pandemics by suppressing the emergence of novel and well-known pathogens, the actions included in the paper help avoid carbon dioxide emissions, conserve water supplies, protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and conserve biodiversity. They also prevent indirect damages not included in the cost estimates, such as psychological harms from lost jobs, lost relatives, or social isolation, delayed medical treatments, and loss or delays of education.
Primary prevention actions and recommendations include:
- Better surveillance of pathogens that may spill from animals to people
- A global viral discovery project should be developed to target where prevention activities should be focused geographically. This library can help quickly identify pathogens when they emerge and accelerate our ability to develop tests and vaccines rapidly and deploy them widely.
- More well-trained veterinarians are needed, especially in spillover hotspots, to monitor for emerging diseases and prevent spillover from wildlife or livestock into people.
- Inadequate monitoring and surveillance of the wildlife trade enables zoonotic disease emergence. An increased budget and personnel for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the World Organization for Animal Health, and national agencies charged with monitoring animal importation to conduct research, monitoring, and enforcement is necessary to reduce risky trade.
- Deforestation, particularly in the tropics, brings people into contact with animals as they enter forests to clear them for agriculture or timber, build roads, or work in mines. It creates forest edges that facilitate contact between people and viral reservoir hosts.
- Mitigating Amazonian deforestation is a cornerstone of primary pandemic prevention. Smaller forests are also important sources of emergent pathogens due to their proximity to densely populated settlements. Tying conservation measures to investments in healthcare system strengthening can support communities living in and around forests.
- Agriculture must be reformed to minimize, or ideally reverse, land conversion, and demand for less sustainable food must also be curtailed.
Climate change is also shrinking habitats and pushing animals on land and sea to move to new places, creating opportunities for pathogens to enter new hosts. The report provides recommendations for research and actions to forestall new pandemics that have largely been absent from high-level discussions about prevention, including a novel call to integrate conservation actions with strengthening healthcare systems globally.
Source-Eurekalert