The health crisis caused by Covid-19 generated global impacts and left a question: can we predict when the next pandemic will occur? Since then, thousands of researchers have undertaken efforts to identify diseases that can spread globally. They believe that the greatest risk comes from a possible variant of Influenza, the virus that causes the flu.
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Is a new pandemic near?
The conclusion is part of research conducted with scientists from the VACCELERATE Consortium, which brought together experts from different countries to accelerate clinical studies of doses against Covid-19. It was published in the scientific journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease and will be presented next week during the Global Congress of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), in Barcelona, Spain.
In total, 187 responses were collected from experts in 57 countries. The researchers, with extensive experience in infectious diseases, were asked to classify different agents according to their pandemic potential. The flu virus ranked first for 57% of respondents, and another 17% placed it in second place.
Every winter we have an Influenza season. You could say this means that every winter there are small pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains are not virulent enough. However, with each season, the strains involved change, which is why we can get the flu several times in our lives, and the vaccines change year to year. If a new strain becomes more virulent, this control may be lost.
Salmanton-García, researcher at the University of Cologne, Germany, and lead author of the study
Another pathogen cited was Disease X, the name used for a microorganism that has not yet been discovered, identified by 21% of scientists as having the greatest pandemic potential. A version of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, came in third place, with 8% of researchers believing that it still has the greatest potential to cause a new pandemic.
The original SARS-CoV, which circulated in 2002 and 2003, was also mentioned, as well as the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHF virus) and Ebola. Nipah, henipavirus and Rift Valley fever virus were among the lowest-ranked pathogens in terms of pandemic potential. The information is from O Globo.
Bird flu raises a warning sign
- The alert comes amid the spread of bird flu around the world.
- The disease, which only circulated in birds, has now spread to mammals.
- The virus has even been identified in cows and traces of H5N1 were recently found in milk samples in the United States.
- The diagnosis came shortly after the confirmation of the first death of a polar bear from the disease.
- Furthermore, penguins have fallen victim to the disease in Antarctica.
- According to experts, this proves that the virus is spreading even in remote areas of the planet.
- Amidst the scenario, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of the risk of advancing cases of avian influenza in birds and mammals.
- This could cause the virus to undergo mutations and infect humans in a more serious and rapid way, which would represent a serious global public health crisis.
