Revealed: The areas where the next pandemic could emerge

An international team of researchers has taken a holistic approach to reveal for the first time where wildlife-human interfaces intersect with areas of poor human health outcomes and highly globalised cities, which could give rise to the next pandemic unless preventative measures are taken.

Areas exhibiting a high degree of human pressure on wildlife also had more than 40 per cent of the world's most connected cities in or adjacent to areas of likely spill-over, and 14-20 per cent of the world's most connected cities at risk of such spill-overs likely to go undetected because of poor health infrastructure (predominantly in South and South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). As with COVID-19, the impact of such spill-overs could be global.

Led by the University of Sydney, the open-access paper shows the cities worldwide that are at risk and pinpoints the geographical areas that require greatest attention.

Lead author Dr Michael Walsh said that previously, much has been done to identify human-animal-environmental hotspots.

"Our new research integrates the wildlife-human interface with human health systems and globalisation to show where spill-overs might go unidentified and lead to dissemination worldwide and new pandemics," said Dr Walsh.

Dr Walsh said that although low- and middle-income countries had the most cities in zones classified at highest risk for spill-over and subsequent onward global dissemination, it should be noted that the high risk in these areas was very much a consequence of diminished health systems.

Moreover, while not as extensively represented in the zone of highest risk because of better health infrastructure, high-income countries still had many cities represented in the next two tiers of risk because of the extreme pressures the affluent countries exert on wildlife via unsustainable development.

The researchers took a three-staged approach:

1. First, identify where the sharing of space between wildlife and humans is greatest, and therefore where spill-over events would be expected to be most common. The researchers refer to this as the 'yellow' and 'orange' alert zones of two- and three-way interactions between humans, domesticated animals and wildlife.

2. Next, identify where areas of high wildlife-human interface coincide with areas of poor health system performance, which would comprise areas expected to miss ongoing chains of transmission following a spill-over event.

3. Finally, identify cities within or adjacent to these areas of spill-over risk that are highly connected to the network of global air travel, and therefore may serve as conduits for future pandemics.

"This is the first time this three-staged geography has been identified and mapped, and we want this to be able to inform the development of multi-tiered surveillance of infections in humans and animals to help prevent the next pandemic," the paper reads.

Of those cities that were in the top quartile of network centrality, approximately 43 per cent were found to be within 50km of the spill-over zones and therefore warrant attention.

A lesser but still significant proportion of these cities were within 50km of the red alert zone at 14.2 per cent (for spill-over associated with mammal wildlife) and 19.6 per cent (wild bird-associated spill-over).

Dr Walsh said although it would be a big job to improve habitat conservation and health systems, as well as surveillance at airports as a last line of defence, the benefit in terms of safeguarding against debilitating pandemics would outweigh the costs.

Where do you think the next mass pandemic will occur first?

3 comments

 

Yep, resting on our butts and ignoring the science will be the cause of the next pandemic. Until the money grabbing governments and insane desire for cutting down trees is stopped, humans are digging graves for themselves. Previously undisturbed ecosystems are being destroyed by bulldozing forests to expand agricultural land. What they are in fact doing is opening a Pandora box by spreading pathogens that were safely locked away in the wild and should stay in the wild, they are there for a purpose.

 

Yep, resting on our butts and ignoring the science will be the cause of the next pandemic. Until the money grabbing governments and insane desire for cutting down trees is stopped, humans are digging graves for themselves. Previously undisturbed ecosystems are being destroyed by bulldozing forests to expand agricultural land. What they are in fact doing is opening a Pandora box by spreading pathogens that were safely locked away in the wild and should stay in the wild, they are there for a purpose.

True if we don't curb our population and respect nature. The environment will curb the human population for us

3 comments



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