Pandemic prevention
Pandemic prevention measures include early detection systems, international coordination with information sharing, laboratory biosafety protocols, oversight of gain-of-function research, restricting access to dual-use biotechnology, monitoring spillover risks in wild animal populations, regulating wildlife trade and wet markets, reducing intensive animal farming, protecting ecosystems, and strengthening public health care systems.During the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the SARS-CoV-1 virus was prevented from causing a pandemic of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
[26] Scientists state that "research relevant to countries with weaker surveillance, lab facilities and health systems should be prioritized" and that "in those regions, vaccine supply routes should not rely on refrigeration, and diagnostics should be available at the point of care".
[27] Two researchers have suggested that public health systems "in each country" need to be capable of detecting contagion early, diagnosing it accurately, implementing effective disease control measures, and fully collaborating with the relevant international authorities at each stage (see below).
These risk include unwitting laboratory escape and accidents such as spillovers during field interventions like wildlife virus sampling,[47][32] and misuse of its results due to e.g. insecure commercial sales of required equipment and/or materials and/or data.
[56] The international Global Virome Project (GVP) aims to identify the causes of fatal new diseases before emergence in human hosts by genetically characterizing viruses found in wild animals.
However, some infectious disease experts have criticized the project as too broad and expensive due to limited global scientific and financial resources and because only a small percentage of the world's zoonotic viruses may cross into humans and pose a threat.
[60] In April 2020 it was reported that researchers developed a predictive algorithm which can show in visualizations how combinations of genetic mutations can make proteins highly effective or ineffective in organisms – including for viral evolution for viruses like SARS-CoV-2.
While such and related endeavors and data are reportedly risky themselves as of 2021,[47][32] the project aims to improve pathogen surveillance, the understanding of viral evolutionary origins and enable quickly connecting strange emerging illnesses to recorded viruses.
[70] In March 2020 scientists of Stanford University presented a CRISPR-based system, called PAC-MAN (Prophylactic Antiviral Crispr in huMAN cells), that can find and destroy viruses in vitro.
[91][92] In one of its projects "HyFly" partners of industry and research work on strategies to contain chains of transmission in air traffic, to establish preventive countermeasures and to create concrete recommendations for actions of airport operators and airline companies.
[107] Expert on infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Amesh Adalja states that the most immediate way to predict a pandemic is with deeper surveillance of symptoms that fit the virus' profile.
[108] David Quammen states that he heard about the idea to develop technology to screen people at airport security points for whether or not they carry an infectious disease ten years ago and thought it was going to be done by now.
[109] Various forms of data-sharing could be added to health care institutions such as hospitals so that e.g. anonymized data about symptoms and incidences found to be unusual or characteristic of a pandemic threat could enable high-resolution "syndromic surveillance" as an early warning system.
[citation needed] The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence is an early-warning center that attempts to aggregate data and quickly analyze it to predict, prevent, detect, prepare for, and respond to outbreaks and was set up Berlin in September 2021.
[121][122] Genomic surveillance refers to monitoring pathogens and analyzing their genetic similarities and differences, which may enable (early) alerts and tailoring interventions, countermeasures and recommendations for the public, like vaccines.
[128][129] A study concluded that the three practical actions "better surveillance of pathogen spillover and development of global databases of virus genomics and serology, better management of wildlife trade, and substantial reduction of deforestation" would have a highly favorable cost-benefit ratio.
[107] According to Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at University College London, the disruption of pristine forests driven by logging, mining, road building through remote places, rapid urbanisation and population growth is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before, resulting in transmission of diseases from wildlife to humans.
The increased pressure on ecosystems is being driven by the "exponential rise" in consumption and trade of commodities such as meat, palm oil, and metals, largely facilitated by developed nations, and by a growing human population.
[161] A 2021 Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) report concluded that "[t]he international system for governing dual-use biological research is neither prepared to meet today’s security requirements, nor is it ready for significantly expanded challenges in the future".
[31] Toby Ord, author of the book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity which addresses the issue, puts into question whether current public health and international conventions, and self-regulation by biotechnology companies and scientists are adequate.
[182] On 6 May 2024, the White House released an official policy to more safely manage medical research projects involving potentially hazardous pathogens, including viruses and bacteria, that may pose a risk of a pandemic.
Senior adviser and veterinary epidemiologist at the National Food Institute at the Technical University of Denmark Ellis-Iversen states that in agricultural animal health "outbreaks of exotic disease in well-regulated countries rarely get big because we identify and control them right away".
[59] New York City's Bronx Zoo's head veterinarian Paul Calle states that usually emerging infectious diseases from animals are the result from wildlife consumption and distribution on a commercial scale rather than a lone person hunting to feed their family.
[94] The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) a network of countries, international organizations, NGOs and companies that aim to improve the world's ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases.
[216] A study found there to be a need "for a renewed framework for global collective action that ensures conformity with international regulations and promotes effective prevention and response to pandemic infectious diseases" and recommended "greater authority for a global governing body, an improved ability to respond to pandemics, an objective evaluation system for national core public health capacities, more effective enforcement mechanisms, independent and sustainable funding, representativeness, and investment from multiple sectors, among others".
[159][31] (see above) Outbreaks could be contained or delayed – to enable other containment-measures – or prevented by artificial induction of immunity and/or biocides in combination with other measures that include prediction or early detection of infectious human diseases.
[51][additional citation(s) needed] In FY2016, DARPA initiated the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program aimed at the "rapid discovery, testing, and manufacture of antibody treatments to fight any emerging disease threat".
[238] A report by the FAIRR global investor network found that more than 70% of the biggest meat, fish and dairy producers were in danger of fostering future zoonotic pandemics due to lax safety standards, closely confined animals and the overuse of antibiotics.
Experts warned that depleting the numbers of species by culling to forestall human infections reduces genetic diversity and thereby puts future generations of the animals as well as people at risk while others contend that it's still the best, practical way to contain a virus of livestock.
[243][244][additional citation(s) needed] There are also problems with the forms of culling-implementation such as livestock producers and subsistence farmers who are unable to access compensation being motivated to conceal diseased animals rather than report them.
