No-one wants to endure another pandemic, yet it’s likely we will.
However, scientific experts say future pandemics can be avoided if more attention is paid to protecting the environment, including preserving forests and changing agricultural practices.
In a global report commissioned by the US’s Harvard Global Health Institute and released on Wednesday, public health experts caution that while efforts to contain outbreaks with vaccines, drugs and testing are critical, these interventions do not get to the root of pandemic risk — the spillover of pathogens between animals and people.
The task force, which evaluated the latest research on what leads to pathogen spillover, argues that wiser investments in nature conservation will minimise the risk of pandemic and be far cheaper than medical interventions. Covid-19 has cost the world $6-trillion (about R89,5-trillion), with the report’s authors arguing that environmental interventions, such as reducing deforestation, sustainable agriculture and regulating wildlife, will cost about $22m.
They found that the spillover of viruses from wildlife to people, sometimes via livestock, is the root cause of pandemic risk. Human activities that increase contact among wildlife, livestock and people drive spillover and disease emergence.
About half of global zoonotic infectious disease in humans has resulted from changes in land use, agricultural and food-production practices, or through wildlife hunting. They found that wild species that may carry zoonotic diseases are shifting their ranges in response to habitat destruction and climate change. They may move into areas near human settlements, increasing their encounters with people.
Dr Yewande Alimi, an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) specialist at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the Covid-19 pandemic is a reminder of the interconnectedness between humans and animals.
“Covid-19 once again reminds us of how interconnected our ecosystem is. Where do we go from here? There is an urgent need for countries to develop and strengthen the activities of the One Health multisectoral platforms. We need immediate and sustainable actions from governments, such as financing and legislations for one-health collaborations to prevent spillovers.”
In the report, Alimi and colleagues note that in tropical regions disease emergence may relate to land clearing for agricultural purposes. About 22% of the land area within biodiversity hotspots, which often overlap with emerging disease hotspots, is threatened by agricultural expansion. Agriculture is associated with 50% of zoonotic diseases that have emerged in humans since 1940.
The authors also believe rapid, unplanned urbanisation may result in cities with high population densities and poor living conditions, where virus-carrying animals such as rodents can thrive and diseases can easily spread.
Hunting and consuming wild animals has been associated with outbreaks of many viral diseases, including Ebola. The hunting of wild primates for food is believed to have led to the emergence of retroviruses, including HIV. The authors argue that “the wildlife trade brings people and wildlife into close contact and has led to several emerging disease outbreaks, including monkey pox and retroviruses, such as simian foamy virus and herpesvirus, that have been found in illegally imported wildlife in the US”.
The recommendations in the report include:
- The conservation of tropical forests.
- Improvement of biosecurity for livestock and farmed wild animals.
- Strengthening of healthcare systems and collaborations that advance human health and spillover prevention.
- Viral discovery in wildlife to keep in check potential pathogens that could enable viral spillovers.
One of the authors, Dr Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University, said no matter how much the world spends on vaccines, vaccination “can never fully inoculate us from future pandemics”.
“We must take actions that prevent pandemics from starting by stopping the spillover of diseases from animals to humans. When we do, we can also help stabilise the planet’s climate and revitalise its biosphere, which is essential to our health and economic welfare.”
The report will be distributed widely to high-level decisionmakers and leaders of private, non-profit and philanthropic organisations, as well as government and UN agencies to “serve as scientifically sound reference for the many important discussions taking place globally about the steps needed to greatly reduce the chances of a future pandemic”.
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