After Ebola and Zika, the next pandemic may have begun that we never knew

In Central and South America, there is a large population of bats that carry many viruses that can spread to humans.

In 2014, the Ebola pandemic broke out in West Africa, the virus determined to spread from bat to human. A year later, Zika broke out in South America with the virus initially infected only on monkeys. Scientists are now wondering:

Which virus will cause the next pandemic for the world, and where is its outbreak?

Predicting this will help us start before preventive prevention campaigns. Peter Daszak, an epidemiologist at the non-profit organization EcoHealth Alliance, said: 'If we allow viruses to get into people, it's too late.'

Scientists are predicting the next pandemic, it may have already begun but we don't know.

An extremely large number of viruses choose animals as their shelter. Sometimes, they 'move' to people. These viruses are called 'zoonoses', causing infectious diseases from animals to humans and vice versa.

The spread of species occurs at very low frequencies. But once it happens, it will become a disaster. Most of the world's pandemics, from HIV, bird flu to Zika, are derived from animals.

Most recent dangerous epidemic, Ebola occurs after the virus spreads from bat to human. It killed at least 11,000 people in West Africa, before humanity could react and successfully prepare an antiviral vaccine.

For the purpose of early prediction of future pandemics Daszak and the team screened scientific research papers and built up a database of 600 viruses that infected 750 mammal species.

This database gives models that help Daszak find out: What characteristics and factors converge have caused the virus to spread from cattle to humans?

Research results published in Nature show some clear trends. For example, geographically close animals (such as mice) and genetically (eg primates) are more likely to share viruses with us.

Animals can carry many viruses, such as bats, which often have a higher likelihood of causing disease to humans. At the same time, viruses transmitted by mosquitoes to animals are more likely to attack humans.

Continuing to use models from the database, the team created a map containing many locations where zoonoses might be hiding. For example, in Central and South America there is a large population of bats, or in North America, a population of rodents that can carry viruses that infect humans.

These maps can guide the early human defense projects. For example, the Global Virome project, in which researchers are calling for $ 3.4 billion to identify 99% of the virus species are likely to threaten people in the future.

"Right now, we've always had to defend," said Barbara Han, a biology researcher from the Cary Institute of Ecology, Neww York. 'Finding the next epidemic may break out very important, because it allows us to improve our ability to win.'

Predicting epidemics allows the development of vaccines in advance. And where it happens helps us prepare in advance the response.

Virus hotspots in animal species are predicted by the study.

However, some researchers say we will have to do more to know the future. Predicting a disease is not simply a screening of viruses that can infect animals from humans to humans.

James Lloyd-Smith, an infectious disease specialist, said: "It's also important to find factors that promote widespread viral spread ." So it depends on the stage of human-to-human transmission more than from animals to humans, he wrote.

Agree with this, Ronald Rosenberg, another infectious disease researcher also said: 'A virus not only jumps from bat to human and then causes a pandemic'. Instead, the virus took decades or centuries to jump between people and animals.

Before a number of factors converge enough, the disease cannot break out. Except for flu viruses, they can make the disease progress faster.

A good example of this is the Zika virus, which scientists found in the monkey in 1947. It took 60 years for Zika to cause the first outbreak in 2007 in the island. Yap. 10 years from now, it will cause a global pandemic.

Until now, the world is still counted as being able to control Zika virus, despite being surprised at the time of the outbreak. Therefore, Lloyd-Smith and Rosenberg argue that a more realistic observation is that we have to keep track of when the virus spreads to humans.

Rosenberg is testing such a surveillance system in Uganda, including tracking people who are frequently exposed to wildlife, setting up routine clinics at virus hotspots, screening patients for viewing. They are suffering from a common disease or a strange infectious disease.

While all these efforts are still being made, a more pessimistic scenario is actually the next pandemic that silently began long ago that we don't know. With a modest amount of time, limited money and limited tools, scientists cannot discover every fever of everyone.

We still miss many opportunities to find traces of the next pandemic.

"We do not have enough information to determine the epidemic right at the time they start to infect people," Rosenberg said. 'We still miss many opportunities [to find traces of the next pandemic], lots of opportunities every day'.

'There is a big gap in this,' Daszak agreed. 'Many diseases break out that we have not been able to guess.' Any number of them can return to a pandemic in the future.

However, he also placed hope in his research, with virus hotspot maps that would support monitoring projects on subsequent people. Although data does not break the financial barrier that leads to better virus detection on humans, it is still more than sitting still.

'My most fear is that we don't do anything, so when we discover the virus, they will get up and start killing people , ' Daszak said.