Next pandemic needs “smart surveillance” for viral spillage.

According to an international team of scientists, “smart surveillance” for viral spillover from animals to humans, targeted preparation and drug and vaccine research, and global cooperation on surveillance and stopping disease spread are required to reduce deaths and lessen the economic impact of the next pandemic.

In an article published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fourteen experts highlight pandemics ranging from 1918 to the COVID-19 outbreak as evidence that “the world has largely failed to meet the task of being better prepared to prevent or respond to the next outbreak.”

According to an international team of scientists, “smart surveillance” for viral spillover from animals to humans, targeted preparation and drug and vaccine research, and global cooperation on surveillance and stopping disease spread are required to reduce deaths and lessen the economic impact of the next pandemic.

In an article published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fourteen experts highlight pandemics ranging from 1918 to the COVID-19 outbreak as evidence that “the world has largely failed to meet the task of being better prepared to prevent or respond to the next outbreak.”

Future epidemics are unavoidable. The best way to reduce the likelihood of widespread disease outbreaks and pandemics and increase the likelihood of mounting a rapid response, according to the team, is to adopt a One Health approach to reduce these threats – working across disciplines and administrative barriers at all levels to understand and address the connections between animal and human health and the environment.
In 2021, the researchers from the United States, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe formed the Independent Task Force on COVID-19 and Other Pandemics: Origins, Prevention, and Response. Gerald Keusch, co-lead author of the PNAS article and director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory and Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University, presided over the task committee.

Recommendations are based on findings from a comprehensive analysis of significant RNA virus outbreaks over the past 50 years and findings from studies conducted prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To inform their recommended solutions for the future, they paid special attention to identifying locations and times where targeted actions in the past could have prevented cross-species transmission.

Evidence suggests that the two SARS coronavirus outbreaks, in 2003 and 2019, can be traced back to coronaviruses in bats that most likely spread to intermediate animal hosts in wildlife farms or markets before infecting humans — in the instance of COVID-19, at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China. The task group determined that the likelihood of a pandemic increases when humans and animals interact intimately in changing environments caused by land use and climate change, environmental degradation, wildlife commerce, population growth, and economic pressure.

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