“The viruses that we do know are only those that have already caused great harm, but we know that that’s less than 1 percent of all the viruses that have that same potential. Those viruses are currently circulating in wildlife today. The next pandemic, the next epidemic virus already exists.”

Key Takeaways

Below are some of the main takeaways from COVID-19 Africa Watch’s conversation with Dr. Dennis Carroll, Chair of the Global Virome Project, a collaborative scientific initiative to discover zoonotic viral threats and stop future pandemics.

• The regions with the highest likelihood to be hotspots for future zoonotic virus outbreaks are usually areas with intensified activities that bring human populations and wildlife or livestock into closer proximity, creating a higher risk of spillover events of viruses into human populations.

• When zoonotic viruses first make the jump from animals to humans, they are “clumsy” and inefficient, but the more time the viruses have to circulate among humans, the better they can select for mutations that confer efficiency of transmission. Therefore, finding viruses early on in the transmission process is essential.

• Simple behavioral changes both pre-and post-outbreak (like lowering risks at live animal markets through good hygiene and not collecting animals together, but also wearing a mask, personal hygiene, and keeping a safe distance from each other) can dramatically lower the risk of spillover events from happening and from spinning out of control. This requires widespread awareness-raising while avoiding the over-politicization of prevention measures.

• The viruses we know about are only those that have already caused harm, and those makeup less than 1 percent of all the viruses that are potentially harmful to humans and that are currently circulating in wildlife. To better prepare ourselves, the global strategy to pandemic forecasting and prevention should move from focusing exclusively on event-based surveillance and monitoring, towards a broader vision of surveillance that targets wildlife animals, livestock, and the interface between the animals and people.

The interview was conducted by Lilian Best, an IFC-Milken Institute Capital Market Scholar who works at the Central Bank of Liberia. A transcript is available below.