How can pandemic risks be controlled and prevented? Looking at the causes of the emergence of infectious diseases

The origins of infectious diseases

22 experts were brought together by the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) to establish links between pandemics and biodiversity. Their report, dated 29 October 2020, confirmed the first lessons to be drawn from the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the phenomenology of the emergence of infectious diseases. The sources of epidemics reside in animals, hosts that are both reservoirs and vectors, and are triggered by human activities that disturb nature and increase the risk of the transmission of pathogenic agents between animals and humans.

These zoonoses – diseases and illnesses transmissible from animals to humans – represent 70% of human infectious diseases. This phenomenon is not recent: the first epidemics occurred eight thousand years ago in the Neolithic era, when domesticated animals began living close to human beings. According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic is at least the sixth global pandemic since the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 (including AIDS and SRAS). What is new is their increased frequency.

Deforestation for the benefit of agricultural and mining activities, demographic expansion that endangers the natural habitats of wild species, the capture and sale of wild animals for consumption, and climatic changes that disturb the unstable and fragile balance of nature: all causes that explain what we are experiencing today. A key figure: among the many documented in this report one stands out: 30% of emerging infectious diseases can be attributed to changes in land-use, the expansion of farmland, and urbanisation

It is estimated that there are 1.7 million undiscovered viruses currently present in mammals and birds, of which 827,000 could potentially infect human beings.

Pandemics, the erosion of biodiversity, and climate change are linked

The risk of more frequent pandemics, that propagate more rapidly and with more serious health and economic impacts could increase according to the authors of this report if not more is done to combat the underlying causes, and if nothing is done to change the global approach to fighting infectious diseases. It is estimated that there are 1.7 million undiscovered viruses currently present in mammals and birds, of which 827,000 could potentially infect human beings.

The challenge? Change from reaction to prevention, by starting from the observation that the estimated cost of reducing risks to prevent pandemics is 100 times less expensive that the cost of responding to them, “thereby providing strong economic incentives for a transformative change”. The report mentioned that the cost of the COVID-19 at the global level was between 8,000 and 16,000 billion dollars up to July 2020 alone!

To achieve this, several paths of action are proposed:

• Greater conservation of protected zones;
• The reduction of non-sustainable exploitation in regions with rich biodiversity;
• The valorisation of the commitment and knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities in epidemic prevention programmes;
• Political options, such as setting up a new intergovernmental partnership on “health and trade”, the institutionalisation of the “only One Health” approach and the establishment of a high-level intergovernmental council on pandemic prevention, with a global research and follow-up dimension.