There are currently about 1.67 million viruses infecting mammals and birds that have yet to be identified. It is believed that up to 827,000 of them are capable of infecting humans.
From the widespread outbreak of monkeypox, now called Mpox, in 2022 to the evolving bird flu situation and recent cases of the Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID is no longer making the headlines as often as it used to. Instead, we regularly hear about outbreaks of new or re-emerging viruses. So is the frequency of virus outbreaks increasing? Or have we just become better at detecting outbreaks thanks to improved technology developed during the COVID pandemic? The answer could be both, writes Science Alert.
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To understand how viruses appear, we need to go back to the beginning of life on Earth. There are several theories about how the first viruses appeared, but they all agree that viruses have been around for billions of years, evolving along with living things. When this stable co-evolution is disrupted, problems arise.
The main factors in the emergence of viruses in the human population are people and their actions. Agriculture became a common practice over 10,000 years ago, and with it people came into close contact with animals. This made it possible for the viruses that naturally infected these animals to jump from one species to another. This is called zoonosis. About 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases are caused by zoonoses.
As human civilization and technology developed, the destruction of animal habitats forced them to seek new territories in search of food sources. Different species that normally did not come into contact with each other now lived in the same environment. Throw humans into the equation and you have the perfect recipe for a new virus.
Urbanization leads to high population density, creating an ideal environment for the spread of viruses. The rapid development of cities and towns often outpaces the development of adequate infrastructure such as sanitation and healthcare, further increasing the likelihood of virus outbreaks.
Climate change also contributes to the spread of viruses. For example, arboviruses (viruses spread by arthropods such as mosquitoes) are being discovered in new areas as the range of countries in which mosquitoes can survive expands.
Scientists have known about these factors for a long time. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) did not surprise any virologist or epidemiologist. It was a question of when—not if—a pandemic would occur. What came as a surprise was the scale of the COVID pandemic and the difficulty of effectively limiting the spread of the virus.
We also couldn’t predict what impact misinformation would have on other areas of public health. In particular, over the past few years, anti-vaccination sentiment has become more prevalent on social media, and we are seeing an increase in the number of vaccine-doubters.
Routine childhood immunization programs have also been disrupted, increasing the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles.
Surveillance lessons
During the COVID pandemic, science has advanced at an unprecedented rate, leading to the development of new and improved virus detection methods to track virus outbreaks and evolution. Now, many scientists who have been tracking SARS-CoV-2 are turning their attention to monitoring other viruses as well.
For example, wastewater monitoring has been widely used to detect SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic and could similarly help track other viruses that pose a threat to human health.
When a person becomes infected with a virus, some of that virus’s genetic material is usually flushed down the toilet. Wastewater can show whether infections are on the rise in an area, usually before hospital cases start to rise.
Adapting this technology to look for other viruses, such as the flu, measles, or even polio, could give us valuable data on the timing of virus outbreaks. To some extent, this is already happening – for example, poliovirus was found in sewage in London in 2022.
This increase in virus surveillance will naturally lead to more reported virus outbreaks. While some people may see this as fear-mongering, this information could be the key to containing any future pandemics. If an outbreak occurs in an area where there is no proper virus surveillance, the infection is likely to spread too far and be difficult to contain.
However, surveillance is only one part of pandemic preparedness. Governments and health and science agencies around the world need to have (regularly updated) protocols for the occurrence of viruses and pandemics so that we do not try to figure out a situation when it may be too late.
COVID is unlikely to be the last pandemic that many people living today will witness. Let’s hope that next time we will be better prepared.
Previously, Focus wrote that bird flu is far from being only bird flu. He got to minks and sea lions.
