Zoonotic Infections – Germs in Vertebrate Animals that Crossover to Humans

“For decades, we've faced the threat of future pandemics without knowing how many viruses are lurking

 in the environment, in wildlife, waiting to emerge. Finally we have a breakthrough—there aren't millions of

unknown virus, just a few hundred thousand, and given the technology we have it's possible that

in my lifetime, we'll know the identity of every unknown virus on the planet” 

Peter Daszak, PhD, corresponding author and president of EcoHealth Alliance.

There are literally billions of viruses, with mutations and new varieties emerging all the time. There has been an assumption that that a killer pandemic, one that obliterates hundreds of thousands or millions of people, comes only once every hundred years or so. Think: Spanish Flu of 1918-20 and COVID-19 of 2019/20 to ?? But depending on which experts you speak with, given the pollution, deforestation, starvation, climate change and drain on expendable resources, on an optimistic basis, our planet is currently home to double the number of people than is sustainable. Thus, probabilities are that even after COVID-19 passes, nature is highly likely to continue to cull the herd. And viruses are a highly effective tool to accomplish that goal.

The harsh reality suggests that as horrible as COVID-19 is, there are viruses building out there that are vastly worse. Infectious agents that will kill 60% of those infected, for example. We weren’t remotely prepared for the current pandemic, and under the mantra of reducing the role of government in our society, the federal government recently dismantled programs focused on preventing or containing such outbreaks, both internally and in outbound efforts to enhance global cooperation. Viruses are not contained by political rhetoric or budgetary constraints and in fact might well benefit from such lackadaisical attitudes. There is a horrific toll to be paid when politicians prefer mythology to hard science.

Well before the COVID-19 explosion, strides were being made in identifying viruses (currently infecting non-human mammals) that might someday threaten humanity, separating out those viruses that do not have that potential. On September 3, 2013, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University published the initial results of this effort to narrow the focus of viral research in an article – First Estimate of Total Viruses in Mammals:  “Scientists estimate that there is a minimum of 320,000 viruses in mammals awaiting discovery. Collecting evidence of these viruses, or even a majority of them, they say, could provide information critical to early detection and mitigation of disease outbreaks in humans. This undertaking would cost approximately $6.3 billion, or $1.4 billion [closer to $7/$1.6 billion today] if limited to 85% of total viral diversity—a fraction of the economic impact of a major pandemic like SARS [which inflicted as estimated $16 billion in damage].

“Close to 70% of emerging viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS, West Nile, Ebola, SARS, and influenza, are zoonoses—infections of animals that cross into humans. Yet until now, there has been no good estimate of the actual number of viruses that exist in any wildlife species.” Without addressing the loss of life or the suffering even of those who recover, the “Centre for Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School determined that the potential [global] toll could range between what it called an ‘optimistic loss’ of $3.3 trillion in case of rapid recovery, and $82 trillion in the event of an economic depression.

“While lost value of $82 trillion is the worst case scenario, the centre’s consensus projection was a loss of some $26.8 trillion, or 5.3%, of global GDP in the coming five years… To put a figure on the potential impact to some of the leading global economies, the following five-year loss projections added more context (All %’s represent five-year GDP estimates):

*US: Best case: $550 billion (0.4% of GDP). Worst case: $19.9 trillion (13.6%)
*UK: Best case: $96 billion (0.46%). Worst case: $2.5 trillion (16.8%)
*China: Best case: $1 trillion (0.9%). Worst case: $19 trillion (16.5%)” Daily News (UK), May 21^st(italics added).

Viruses aren’t the only contagion that threaten people. There also dangerous bacteria, fungi and parasites. In recent years, we have seen the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but the scariest trend is focused on the rise of new seemingly incurable viruses. Coronaviruses are just one significant category of viruses (just like there is another category of Ebola viruses). Is it possible to take out one entire family of viruses with a single vaccine? Who knows?

The Donald Trump approach to this pandemic, inconsistently shifting responsibility and blame on state governments, putting in and then taking out federal involvement, cutting support and excoriating scientists and medical expertise, is obviously is a soup-to-nuts failed policy. The White House’s writing off the pandemic threat early in the game, denying the problem, delaying the response, defunding agencies necessary to find solutions, blaming China, positing false statistics as well as clearly ineffective cures and failing to step up federal involvement in procuring and distributing supplies are estimated to have cost well over thirty thousand American lives (according to Columbia University), a number likely to rise significantly under federal pressure to open the economy without following most CDC guidelines to limit infection rates.

Effectively, this laissez-faire prioritization of totally reopening the economy, until a vaccine is clearly in wide deployment (which is unlikely in the near term), is reliance on achieving so-called herd immunity. The required exposure – which will explode infection and mortality rates way beyond anything we have experienced to date – to the disease is at least 60% of the population. We still hovering below 20%. To understand exactly what herd immunity requirements are, please refer to my June 13^th Are We Just Going to Learn to Live with Massive Death Tolls? blog.

So many of us believe that once we get past this horrific pandemic, we will be just fine for the foreseeable future. No SARS. No MERS. No Ebola. They never happened? The only reality of which we can be absolutely certain: there will be more epidemics, more pandemics… and we will not have to wait a century for the next. To exacerbate the risk, climate change is causing the migration of animals (including disease carrying insects) and germs to climates that reflect the environments and temperatures they are used to. New areas that have no experience with those species or any built-up immunities to the migrating contagions. In the meantime, the US COVID-19 infection and mortality rates are rising again.

            I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we unite as a nation and seriously increase federal funding towards pandemic research, prevention, preparation and cure, the next pandemic-resulting loss of life and economic damage could dwarf what we have experienced and will experience from COVID-19.