Why it is possible to say that the world has entered “the era of the pandemic” and what could be the next pathogen

As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), “the worldwide spread of a new disease is called a pandemic”.

Yes indeed, A pandemic occurs when a new pathogen spreads around the world and most people are not immune to it. This happens since the world is world and therefore civilizations have advanced in the discovery of drugs and vaccines.

So far in the 21st century, humanity has resisted the SARS epidemic in 2003, the influenza pandemic between 2009 and 2010, and the MERS and Ebola epidemics in 2012 and 2014, respectively. At the end of 2019, SARS-CoV-2 made its appearance, and from there the story is known to all.

When the global health crisis that started in the city of Wuhan, China, has yet to be overcome, science is already speculating on how sooner or later a new pathogen will once again find its way out of its host and infect humans. Then, globalization and its constant mobility will spread it across the world.

And, despite advances in medicine and science making it possible to shorten vaccine development times by several years, The reality shows that a specific treatment for COVID-19 has not yet been found and that health systems are not prepared to prevent and cope with a situation such as that generated by the coronavirus.

Eduardo Martínez Manzanares is professor of microbiology at the University of Malaga and considered that “infectious diseases capable of becoming pandemic are inherent in the coexistence of man with animals which act as reservoirs”. And he explained: “The mutational capacity of pathogens allows microorganisms to develop virulence factors and to skip species. Then they find a virus with new abilities and an immune system that is unprepared. “

Thus, the expert estimates that the pathogen which will generate the next pandemic will be the most resistant and the most virulent (that is to say with the greatest capacity to produce a disease), with a lethality which will not make it not lose his options for survival.

Guillermo López Lluch, professor of cell biology at Pablo de Olavide University, agreed with him, adding two more conditions to be met: “A global pandemic requires a microorganism that spreads easily and is very mobile.” And in this sense, “a virus has more capacity than a bacterium”.

This was warned by the John Hopkins University pandemic expert three years ago: “The most likely natural threat that humans face is from an RNA virus transmitted through the respiratory tract, so this class of microbes should be a priority for prevention.”

Without a doubt, the world has been changed by this pandemic, which has produced changes that will last for a long time. For the infectious disease specialist Roberto Debbag (MN 60253) “The pandemic and the knowledge of what happened on a scientific level during this crisis shows that the theory that many people in the world are going to enter an era of pandemic is like this.”

According to the hypothesis with which the vice-president of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases agrees, “this is not the last pandemic and the next is going to happen in a short time, the world has entered an era of pandemic in which the human beings must produce adaptations and modifications ”.

And he explained, “Entering the era of the pandemic means that there is a series of accelerators to make this happen: one is global air traffic mobilization, which has potentially increased in recent years; the second is that the people who inhabit the planet have better access to food, the best quality food comes from protein and protein from the animal and plant world, therefore, the animal world generates more contact with humans; and the third is the Deforestation“.

For him, “people have had to adapt to something very dramatic like this COVID pandemic, but the most worrying thing is that they have to adapt to a new pandemic world”.

López Lluch pointed out that “The origin (of the next pandemic) can be anywhere”, and considered: “With climate change, vectors are multiplying, as demonstrated by the latest outbreaks of the Nile virus or other infectious diseases “.

Martínez Manzanares in turn added the risk “of exposing the population and animals that should not be together”, which “favors that pathogens can jump to humans”.

In this sense, the microbiologist supported the opinion of María Neira, director of public health and the environment of the WHO, who warned against the dangerous relationship between viruses and human pressures on the environment: “By replacing the forest with intensive and polluting agriculture, the animals that live in these places where man has not entered are undergoing profound changes. We interact with species with which we were not in contact and which can transmit diseases to us ”.

For Martínez Manzanares, These are “situations that would not occur naturally”.

Regarding the best way to prepare for the coming pandemic, López Lluch felt that the basic strategy, after the preventive strategy of avoiding contact with animals that serve as reservoirs, is strengthen systems for the identification of pathogens and new infectious diseases, have health systems prepared and adequately resourced and act urgently in the event of notification, although it does not lead to such a bad situation as the current situation. “I’d rather they make a mistake than hide it,” he said.

To maintain these strategies – for him – it is essential to invest in two interconnected fields: science and health. “The first is essential for recognizing the emergence of a new pathogen and developing both vaccines and treatments. The second, to put in place prevention and intervention strategies ”.

The doctor and professor of history of science at the University of Castilla-La Mancha María Isabel Porras, warned that One of the keys to COVID-19 and future epidemics is the “positive role of isolation measures, perimeter closures and limitation of population movements, in reducing the number of cases and alleviating the overload of systems health beatings., clarified by years of neoliberal policies ”.

In this sense, he stressed that one of the lessons to be learned for future episodes is how to mitigate the effects of these measures among workers and in the low-income population, who “must choose between isolating themselves – no without difficulty because of their home – and go to work to survive ”.

And if it is about inequalities, at this stage, the specialist estimated that “we must rethink the strategy of development of vaccines”. “Things are not going well. Production and distribution have become a powerful enterprise, a means of achieving or maintaining the political and economic hegemony of countries ”.

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