What if pandemics were the new evil of the century? For two years, according to the WHO, COVID has killed nearly 15 million people and caused unimaginable distress across the planet. If the mortality rate associated with the pandemic is decreasing currently, many experts warn of future pandemics to come.

The Pasteur Institute specifically emphasizes that “emerging viruses have worried scientists lately, such as Nipah virus in Asia or monkeypox in Africa”. An increased concern with globalization that Allows a microbe to “go around the world in less than 24 hours”.

Future pandemic “impossible to predict”

Arnaud Fontanet, head of the epidemiology unit at the Pasteur Institute, explains, “We are unable to predict where and when the next pandemic will occur. There are three modes of origin, The first is crossing the species barrier, that is, the passage of an infectious agent from animals to humans. Such was the case with the transmission of the AIDS virus from chimpanzees to humans in the early 20th century.

“The second concern is changes in the genomes of pathogens, leading to the appearance of “new” influenza viruses, or the resistance of many microbes to treatments, such as from malaria parasites to anti-malarials or bacteria to antibiotics, continues. Virus Arrival in New Geographical Areas: Zika virus, which had been circulating quietly in Africa and Southeast Asia, reached the Pacific with epidemics in French Polynesia in 2013, then in Latin America in 2015. Released from their habitat Viruses have since toured the world.

Global warming in sight

Asked by our colleagues from Paris, infectious disease expert Yazdan Yazdanpanah details the scientists’ key predictions. “We are in the process of determining a list of pathogens (viruses, bacteria) that concern us and which we will track down over the next ten years.”

“These are, for example, the respiratory virus at the origin of chikungunya, arbovirus, dengue fever… We can clearly see that before Covid, we had H1N1 in 2009, and even before that, in 2003, SARS-CoV -1. And others: Ebola, Zika… These outbreaks are likely to continue.”

And global warming is likely to make the situation worse. ,When the temperature rises by 4 degrees, there are certainly more mosquitoes, which carry germs and therefore are at greater risk of exposure to pathogens.“, he explains.

“You have to do something new to fight”

However, there is no question of casting fatalism on the side of the scientific community. “We are in the process of establishing attack plan, Yazdan assured Yazdanpanah. First of all, it is absolutely necessary thatAnimals are better supervisedthat we understand why a pathogen is adapted to humans when previously it was not.”

“Ultimately, we must start finding treatments and vaccines for the five to ten pathogens at risk of epidemics, such as chikungunya or Zika. To fight, we must innovate.”