New Delhi: The Lancet has issued a fresh warning on the next major global health crisis, expressing concerns about the world’s preparedness in dealing with it.
According to Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the leading medical journal, another pandemic is “almost inevitable” as human-driven environmental destruction continues to bring people and animals into closer contact.
Humanity is “destroying the planet sufficiently to create conditions for another pandemic in the next 20 years,” Horton told India Today. In fact, it is “almost inevitable,” he opined.
Destruction of forests, rapid urban expansion, climate change and unregulated animal-human interactions are pushing humans closer to pathogens that once
circulated within animal populations.
As animals are forced into closer proximity with people, increasing the chances of viruses crossing species barriers.
The world is already witnessing a worrying trend of zoonotic viruses — pathogens that originate in animals — are increasingly jumping to humans and other mammals.
Horton also pointed to unsafe meat markets and abattoirs as major sources for viral transmission.
Meat is left uncovered and flies swarm freely after animals are killed in crowded spaces. The meat is then sold on streets with hardly any protection.
“These are exactly the conditions where a mutated virus can move from animal to human,” Horton said. If such a virus is capable of spreading through the respiratory route, the consequences could be devastating.
There have been theories that SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, may have originated in a similar market in China’s Wuhan.
A year ago, Lancet had alerted about a 48 per cent chance of a catastrophic pandemic causing more than 25 million deaths in the coming years and a 23 per cent likelihood of a COVID-like outbreak within the next decade.