What will the next pandemic be like? The probability of being related to respiratory viruses “is 100%, it remains to be seen when”

In today’s world, the search for the next pandemic or disease has become a recurring theme in scientific and cinematic discussions. Before the arrival of Covid-19, many productions imagined the darkest scenarios facing the possibility of a new deadly virus. However, reality surpassed fiction in 2020, when the world was ravaged by a pandemic that affected every corner of the planet. Now, experts are in a race against time to identify and contain the pathogens that could pose the next big threat to global health. And according to experts, everything indicates that these will be pathogens that affect the respiratory tract.

Among the viruses that are under constant surveillance, influenza occupies a prominent place. The emergence of new strains of avian and swine flu has worried experts, who warn of the pandemic potential of these viruses. Adolfo García-Sastre, a famous virologist at the Institute for Global Health and Emerging Pathogens in New York, emphasizes in an interview with El Mundo that “the more diversity and quantity of circulating viruses there are, the greater the risk to public health.”

This concern is shared by Colin Russell, from the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University of Amsterdam, who highlights the diversity of bird and swine flu viruses as a real threat. “The probability of a future pandemic coming from a respiratory virus is 100%, it remains to be seen what the time horizon is,” he says.

A recent study, published in the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, revealed that the flu virus (influenza) is considered the main pathogen of concern with pandemic potential by more than half of the world’s infectious disease experts. Jon Salmanton-García, researcher at the University of Cologne, highlights that “influenza, together with disease [ainda desconhecida]SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and the Ebola virus are the pathogens of most concern in terms of their pandemic potential.”

In addition to the flu, other viruses are also on experts’ radar, including the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Zika, Ebola and MERS-CoV. The rapid spread of these viruses and their ability to cause epidemic outbreaks concerns health authorities around the world.

Regarding influenza, Professor Raúl Ortiz de Lejarazu, director emeritus of the National Influenza Center in Valladolid, highlights its capacity for genetic variability, stating that “influenza viruses, together with HIV, are the ones that have the greatest capacity for genetic variability” . The expert compares the mutation speed of flu or HIV viruses with that of SARS-CoV-2, saying that “the mutation speed of flu or HIV viruses is that of a Ferrari and that of SARS-CoV-2 that of a utility man.”

Mark Woolhouse, Chair of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh and scientific advisor to the UK and Scottish governments, highlights that the next pandemic could arise from a strictly zoonotic virus, such as avian flu, or from a completely new one. He explains that “we cannot prevent the next pandemic, but we can detect it more quickly, which would allow us to contain or even stop it, as we did with the original SARS virus”.

Experts unanimously agree that early detection of any sign of mutation or adaptation of these viruses is crucial to contain the spread and avoid a global crisis similar to Covid-19.