#future pandemics

[thoughtlessarse]

Next pandemic likely to be caused by flu virus, scientists warn

Influenza is still the biggest threat to global health as WHO raises fears about the spread of avian strain

Influenza is the pathogen most likely to trigger a new pandemic in the near future, according to leading scientists. An international survey, to be published next weekend, will reveal that 57% of senior disease experts now think that a strain of flu virus will be the cause of the next global outbreak of deadly infectious illness. The belief that influenza is the world’s greatest pandemic threat is based on long-term research showing it is constantly evolving and mutating, said Cologne University’s Jon Salmanton-García, who carried out the study. “Each winter influenza appears,” he said. “You could describe these outbreaks as little pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains that cause them are not virulent enough – but that will not necessarily be the case for ever.” Details of the survey – which involved inputs from a total of 187 senior scientists – will be revealed at European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) congress in Barcelona next weekend. The next most likely cause of a pandemic, after influenza, is likely to be a virus – dubbed Disease X – that is still unknown to science, according to 21% of the experts who took part in the study. They believe the next pandemic will be caused by an as-yet-to-be-identified micro-organism that will appear out of the blue, just as the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the cause of Covid-19, did, when it started to infect humans in 2019.

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[mizelaneus]

Legal infrastructure for pandemic response: lessons not learnt in the US

Michelle Mello and colleagues argue that state legal reforms have generally exacerbated rather than improved weaknesses in US emergency powe

[mizelaneus]

Improved future pandemic responses hinge on more government involvement, experts say

Increased government oversight of public health research, disease surveillance, and policy is critical to saving lives and promoting equity

[thoughtlessarse]

Arctic zombie viruses in Siberia could spark terrifying new pandemic, scientists warn

Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian shipping activity

Humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say. Strains of these Methuselah microbes – or zombie viruses as they are also known – have already been isolated by researchers who have raised fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered – not by an illness new to science but by a disease from the distant past. As a result, scientists have begun planning an Arctic monitoring network that would pinpoint early cases of a disease caused by ancient micro-organisms. Additionally, it would provide quarantine and expert medical treatment for infected people in a bid to contain an outbreak, and prevent infected people from leaving the region. “At the moment, analyses of pandemic threats focus on diseases that might emerge in southern regions and then spread north,” said geneticist Jean-Michel Claverie of Aix-Marseille University. “By contrast, little attention has been given to an outbreak that might emerge in the far north and then travel south – and that is an oversight, I believe. There are viruses up there that have the potential to infect humans and start a new disease outbreak.”

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[thoughtlessarse]

Need for planning: World 'dangerously unprepared' for next crisis: Red Cross

All countries remain "dangerously unprepared" for the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned on Monday, saying future health crises could also

All countries remain "dangerously unprepared" for the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned on Monday, saying future health crises could also collide with increasingly likely climate-related disasters. Despite three "brutal" years of the Covid-19 pandemic, strong preparedness systems are "severely lacking", the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said. The world's largest humanitarian network said building trust, equity and local action networks were vital to get ready for the next crisis. "All countries remain dangerously unprepared for future outbreaks," the IFRC said, concluding that governments were no more ready now than in 2019. It said countries needed to be prepared for "multiple hazards, not just one", saying societies only became truly resilient through planning for different types of disaster, as they can occur simultaneously. The IFRC cited the rise in climate-related disasters and waves of disease outbreaks this century, of which Covid-19 was just one. It said extreme weather events were growing more frequent and intense, "and our ability to merely respond to them is limited".

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[worldaidsday]

Why bold action against inequalities is needed to end AIDS, stop COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics.

Unequal, unprepared, under threat: why bold action against inequalities is needed to end AIDS, stop COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics: 2021 World AIDS DAY Report.

GENEVA, 29 November 2021—UNAIDS issued a stark warning today that if leaders fail to tackle inequalities the world could face 7.7 million* A

[laercarroll]

Engrossing Real-life SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE STORY

Engrossing Real-life SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE STORY

I’m now reading a fascinating true account of a scientific detective effort that yielded miraculous technology which could erase tragic genetic diseases, remake our bodies, and fight epidemics like COVID-19 (which it already did by producing several vaccines against it). The heroes of the story are two women: Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. Click on the image to read the first few…

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[thoughtlessarse]

Pharmaceutical giants not ready for next pandemic, report warns

Ten of the world’s most infectious diseases identified by the WHO not being catered for by drug firms

The world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms are little prepared for the next pandemic despite a mounting response to the Covid-19 outbreak, an independent report has warned.

Jayasree K Iyer, executive director of the Netherlands-based Access to Medicine Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the UK and Dutch governments and others, highlighted an outbreak of the Nipah virus in China, with a fatality rate of up to 75%, as potentially the next big pandemic risk.

“Nipah virus is another emerging infectious disease that causes great concern,” she said. “Nipah could blow any moment. The next pandemic could be a drug-resistant infection.”

Nipah can cause severe respiratory problems and encephalitis, swelling of the brain, and has a mortality rate of 40% to 75%, depending on where the outbreak occurs. Fruit bats are its natural host. Outbreaks in Bangladesh and India were probably linked to drinking date palm juice.

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