The world is still struggling to combat COVID-19, and the reforms needed to ensure global readiness for the next novel pathogen are not proceeding fast enough. Unless that changes, the current pandemic surely will not be the last.
AUCKLAND – With countries still muddling through waves of highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it is clearly premature to declare the pandemic over. Somewhere in the world, another dangerous pathogen – perhaps currently living in a bat or forming in a pig’s gut – could make the jump to humans, spread, and thrive. Many human diseases originate through such “spillovers.” In the worst cases, as with COVID-19, these organisms become serious health threats and put the whole world at risk.
AUCKLAND – With countries still muddling through waves of highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it is clearly premature to declare the pandemic over. Somewhere in the world, another dangerous pathogen – perhaps currently living in a bat or forming in a pig’s gut – could make the jump to humans, spread, and thrive. Many human diseases originate through such “spillovers.” In the worst cases, as with COVID-19, these organisms become serious health threats and put the whole world at risk.