There was an Ebola epidemic in 2014 and a Zika outbreak in 2016 , but neither finish up becoming pandemic like theSpanish Influenza virusthat killed up to 5 percentage of the world ’s population ( 100 million masses ) in 1918 . So , how does an outbreak turn into a pandemic ? And how can we augur the next one ?
Aworldwide epidemicposes one of the greatest threats to humanity so – unsurprisingly – hundred of scientists are currently attempting to predict when , where , and how the next one will originate . But according to a new report published inOpen Biology , this could be a waste of fourth dimension . They " are potential to fail " .
The job is there are too many viruses , the researchers say . The organic evolution that has to take office for a pathogen to alternate from an beast to a human ( let alone from human to homo ) is so random and sinful that it ’s most unsufferable for current models to call . Even if a virus achieves human - to - human transmission , severalother factorsare require to cause a full - blown pandemic , like a relatively short brooding period and a dense population .
As of right now , we ’re cognisant of roughly 4,400 computer virus type . In world , there are likely to be millions . Experts estimate that 99.9 percent of virus are unknown but , luckily for us , most of these can not be passed from animals to humans .
" The inconvenient truth … is that the vastness of the unknown virosphere and the various ambit of viruses that have attain endemic transmission system in humans means that any attempt to predict what computer virus may egress next will face substantial , and probably crippling , difficulties , " Australian scientist , Jemma Geoghegan and
They also point out that the two most late epidemics have been because of two well - described pathogens . Zika was discovered in 1947 ; Ebola in 1976 . The greatest pandemic threat could lie in " viruses that re - come forth intermittently in heavy and dense host population . "
Geoghegan and Holmes are n’t indicate we pose back and hold back for Mother Nature to do her thing . They advance a " more practical " approach , involving surveillance ofgeographical hotspots(places where man and wild animals meet ) for disease emergence . Instead of explore for viruses in animals , which they describe as a " Sisyphean workout " , we should concenter on those found in humans .
" Humans are the honest sentinels : a virus discover in human beings very obviously can double in that host , which will not be the case for myriad viruses identified through biodiversity surveys of other fauna taxa , " they drop a line .
Many reason that the scientific movement they critique should n’t be so quickly dismissed . As Jonna Mazet , world-wide theater director forPREDICT , toldThe Atlantic , had there been similar complaints in meteorology 100 age ago “ we would n’t have created the data that lets us forecast the atmospheric condition , which we can do pretty well now . ”
