Influenza is the pathogen most likely to cause a new pandemic in the near future, according to leading scientists.
An international survey to be released next weekend reveals that 57% of senior disease experts now believe that influenza virus strains will cause the next deadly pandemic.
The idea that influenza is the world's biggest pandemic threat is based on long-term studies showing that influenza is constantly evolving and mutating, said study author John Salmanton Garcia of the University of Cologne. Stated.
“Influenza appears every winter,” he says. “You could say these outbreaks are mini-pandemics. The different strains that cause them aren't virulent enough, so they're more or less under control, but that doesn't mean they'll last forever.”
Details of the study, which included input from a total of 187 senior scientists, will be revealed at the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) conference in Barcelona next weekend.
According to 21% of the experts who participated in the study, the next most likely cause of a pandemic after influenza is likely a virus called “Disease X,'' which is not yet scientifically understood. . They believe the next pandemic will be caused by an unidentified microorganism that suddenly appears, much like the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. Human infections began in 2019.
In fact, some scientists still believe Sars-CoV-2 is a threat, with 15% of scientists surveyed in this study saying it is the most likely cause of a pandemic in the near future. It is evaluated as follows.
Only 1% to 2% of respondents rated other deadly microorganisms, such as Lassa virus, Nipah virus, Ebola virus, and Zika virus, as serious global threats. “Influenza remains the greatest threat in terms of pandemic potential in the eyes of the majority of scientists around the world,” Salmanton García added.
Last week, the World Health Organization expressed concern about the alarming spread of H5N1 influenza, which is causing millions of cases of bird flu around the world. The outbreak began in 2020 and has led to the death or culling of tens of millions of domestic birds, and the extinction of millions of wild birds.
Most recently, the virus has spread to mammals, including livestock, now infected in 12 states in the United States, further raising concerns about the risk to humans. Daniel Goldhill, from the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, said the more mammalian species a virus infects, the more chance it has of evolving into a strain dangerous to humans. Nature last week.
Ed Hutchinson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, added that the appearance of the H5N1 virus in cattle was a surprise. “Pigs can get bird flu, but until recently cows didn't. They were infected with their own strain of the disease. So the emergence of his H5N1 in cows was shocking. .
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“That means the virus is infecting more and more livestock, and the risk of infecting humans from livestock becomes increasingly high. The more the virus spreads, the more likely it is to mutate and infect humans. We're basically rolling the dice on this virus.”
To date, there is no indication that the H5N1 virus is spreading among humans. But in the hundreds of cases in the past two decades where humans were infected through contact with animals, the effects were severe. “Humans have no natural immunity to the virus, so mortality rates are extraordinarily high,” said Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the World Health Organization.
Scientists also note that vaccines have already been developed for many strains, including H5N1, but the prospects for an influenza pandemic are alarming. “Even in the event of an avian influenza pandemic, it would be a huge logistical challenge to produce a vaccine at the scale and speed needed. But if we had to develop a vaccine from scratch, we would We will be much further along than we were during COVID-19,” Hutchinson said.
Nevertheless, some of the lessons in preventing the spread of the disease have been forgotten since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, Salmanton-Garcia said. “People have gone back to coughing into their hands and shaking hands with others. Mask-wearing is gone. We're going back to old bad habits. We're going to regret it.” It might be.”
