2023-12-26 09:57:35
It seems like it was much longer ago, but we are close to the fourth anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic, which killed about six million people and spread throughout the world, including Spain.
But not only that, but it changed, surely forever, with the way in which human beings deal with respiratory viruses, without taking into account other factors such as the way we relate or work.
Once the worst is over, the question that arises is whether it can happen again. It is the question that has been asked Daily Mailwho has spoken to three virologists and asked them what they think the next pandemic may be and how and where it may originate.
Leonard Mermel, Brown University
Dr. Leonard Mermel of Brown University says the next virus will likely appear when a poultry worker sick with human flu is infected with the bird strain at the same time.
“These two viruses would then meet inside one of their cells and exchange genes to create a new chimeric virus,” Mermel said. A chimeric virus is one that contains genetic material from more than one virus.
This supervirus would then begin to spread rapidly from person to person through respiratory droplets, he explained, spreading around the world and triggering the next pandemic. The researcher warned that, at first, the strain could kill between 30 and 40% of the people it infects. By comparison, when Covid first emerged, it had a 5% mortality rate in the epicenter of Wuhan.
China is the most likely place where the new virus will first appear, he said, because the country often records cases of human infection with bird flu.
“Something that has worried me for a long time is the transmission of avian flu strains to humans, which is a cause for great concern,” explains the expert.
“One particular strain is H5N1, which has undergone incremental changes over the past 10 to 20 years, but has yet to evolve to be easily transmitted from person to person,” he said.
“It has acquired some mutations so that it can infect humans, which is scary. On the other hand, it has been around for a while, but I think at the same time we can get a false sense of security. I think this is because these viruses can mutate very quickly,” Mermel continues.
“It is certainly possible that it could cause a pandemic in the next 10 to 20 years; there would be consensus on that time frame. But it could also take longer,” he concludes.
Martin Hirsch, Hospital de Massachusetts
Virologist Martin Hirsch, who works at Massachusetts Hospital, also said the next pandemic could be caused by avian flu, but added it could also start with a coronavirus.
According to this doctor, the outbreak will probably be triggered when the viruses infect an intermediary animal (such as a pig) and mutate, allowing them to be transmitted between humans.
A pandemic involving a coronavirus, the family of viruses to which Covid-19 belongs, could come from bats, he suggested, while bird flu would probably jump from domestic birds.
This will likely occur in the United States, Europe or China, where many animals are kept in dirty, overcrowded conditions conducive to the spread of disease, Hirsch says.
As for when it will happen, he said it was “very difficult to predict,” but added that flu outbreaks tend to occur between 10 and 40 years apart.
“I think coronaviruses and flu would be the most likely causes of the next pandemic,” explained the virologist. “But I wouldn’t rule out other viruses like HIV, Ebola, yellow fever and dengue, which are transmitted by different routes. They are certainly possibilities,” he said.
“But, in my opinion, I consider that a respiratory virus has a greater chance of being transmitted rapidly globally. Certainly, Covid spread that way and so did the flu, and almost all the major and most recent pandemics and epidemics have spread due to RNA viruses,” Hirsch explained.
Elmer Gray, University of Georgia
Elmer Gray is an entomologist at the University of Georgia who maintains that rising temperatures, along with globalization, have created a situation in which the United States must face disease outbreaks “year after year,” although he stopped short of saying that this type of virus can cause a total pandemic.
Gray said another “totally unknown disease” transmitted by mosquitoes could also catch the United States by surprise in the coming years. “Every year there is a chance of an outbreak of insect-borne diseases,” he told the Daily Mail.
“This year, we didn’t have a huge number of hurricanes… but all the eggs laid this year are still there and will surely be ready for the next hurricane. What I’m really worried about are the longer warm seasons,” Gray says.
“At night, the water is kept warm, which allows the larvae to grow much faster and that accelerates their life cycle, which increases the number of mosquitoes,” he added.
He added: “Insect-borne diseases are not going to cause the next pandemic, but there is definitely the potential for outbreaks and large areas of concern.”
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