While the world is still focused on the ongoing Coronavirus crisis, epidemiologists continue to monitor for new viral threats, attempting to get ahead of them before they become the next global pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) keeps a list of the viruses and bacteria that are of most concern. WHO liaised with 300 scientists and researchers to produce this list of nine viruses that keep epidemiologists up at night.
Nipah Virus
- Nipah is carried by both domestic animals and fruit bats. It is transmitted to humans through contact with an infected animal and through contaminated foods. When a virus hops from its animal host to a human is it called a “spillover virus”.
- It has a 40% to 75% fatality rate, often due to encephalitis, the swelling of the brain. There is no vaccine available but preventative measures include avoiding exposure to sick animals and avoiding fruits that may have come in contact with bats.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever
- This virus is spread to humans by both ticks and livestock. Transmission between humans typically occurs through bodily fluids and blood.
- The disease, which has a 10% to 40% fatality rate, is endemic and occurs regularly throughout the Balkans, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
- The antiviral drug ribavirin appears to help, but the virus is worrying because sick animals often show no symptoms.
Lassa Fever
- This virus, endemic in West Africa, is spread through the feces and urine of rodents to humans.
- The fatality rate is 1% but hospitalization rates are 15%. It is particularly deadly for third-trimester fetuses and can cause deafness in those infected.
Rift Valley Fever
- Found in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Africa, it is spread by mosquitoes that infect livestock like cattle and sheep, and to humans via mosquito bites or contact with infected animals. It spreads between people through blood and bodily fluids.
- The fatality rate is 1%, but 8-10% of people develop eye lesions, brain swelling, and hemorrhagic fever, which can be deadly. A vaccine has been created but has not been released.
Zika
- Zika is spread by mosquitoes, but can easily spread from a pregnant person to a fetus and via blood transfusions, drug needles, and sexual contact.
- It is rarely fatal but can cause brain defects in fetuses. There is no vaccine available.
Ebola and Marburg Virus
- Bats and primates are the main carriers of the virus, and once a human has been infected they can spread the virus via blood, bodily fluids, and by leaving virus particles on objects and surfaces.
- The disease only spreads when an infected person is symptomatic, however, the fatality rate is high, varying between 25% to 90%.
MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)
- Part of the coronavirus family, MERS is spread via camels to humans, and then between humans via close contact with an infected person.
- The fatality rate is 35% and 27 countries have reported cases in the past decade. A vaccine is in the works.
SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome)
- Palm civets and bats are the sources of SARS. After a spillover event, it spreads through droplets from coughs and sneezes and through contact with infected surfaces.
- It has a 1% fatality rate. No vaccine has been developed but SARS is typically only infectious once someone has noticeable symptoms, making it easier to contain than Covid-19.
Disease X
- National Geographic has said that there are more virus variations on earth than there are stars in the universe.
- WHO acknowledges the existence of countless unknown viruses and bacteria that could pose a future threat.
Are you worried about a new pandemic or virus outbreak?
—Emma Kansiz
(Photo Credits: Wikipedia)
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Climate & Consumption
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Safety & Security
There are many interconnected factors at play that mankind has not had to deal with until recently. This earth is a finite place and mankind's abuse of it's finiteness has brought about many changes.
For me, the greatest risk of a new pandemic comes from the rapidly changing climate which we are currently experiencing in the earliest stages of that which will assuredly rapidly get much worse before it gets better.
Climate change will increasingly bring wildlife and humanity together as each will have to mgrate to find potable water, avoid flooding and severe weather events, and leaving areas of life-intolerant heat. As they populations mix there will be a much greater possibility of cross over viruses that come from wildlife to humans, novel viruses; novel in the sense that humanity has not developed any natural immunity to these viruses that can help ward them off.
The viruses listed are of that ilk built there will be many, many more brewed up in the new mixing pots of humans and wildlife. Novel viruses will increasingly be cooked up as viruses cross back and forth between wildlife and humans - and some could become quite lethal.
Other factor include such things as compromised human immune systems and the long term effects of such things as micro-plastics, PFA's and other chemicals that most human populations have ingested to one degree or another.
Seeing how completely unprepared the world was/is for dealing with pandemics, that got me concerned. Seeing how people refuse to be part of the solution. That is horribly concerning.
In all the movies the cdc had their act together, here without federal support, coupled with immediate supply chain issues for things like masks, etc. We all should be concerned.
Also, and I say this in half jest, but not enough people apparently ever watched movies on this subject, because wth, if you had, you'd know some of the basics. Part of me at the time thought how can you not know some of how this all works? Go watch at least the movie Contagion and learn a thing or two.
I am worried about how people will react to another pandemic. The one we still have could have been prevented. We could have had less death if the clown administration followed the pandemic policy that was put in place under the Obama Administration.
I am worried about the medical team being over worked and burnout.
I say maybe, only because I will follow all what my doctor and medical staff recommend. Vaccinations if recommended, mask if advised.
It's pretty clear that our country was not and likely still is not ready for a pandemic on the scale that COVID-19 was, and I hope somebody in charge is planning for the next one.
As we continue to encroach upon wildlife the way we are in areas of new logging and farming, the risk that we will contract viruses from other species grows. In addition, the changing climate is making some insects and viruses able to better thrive and spread, which could increase their risk to us.
We don't know what or when the next pandemic will be, but if we don't improve our public health systems and emergency plans, we may not be ready...and the next one may not be so easily fought with masks and vaccines.
9 Viruses With Pandemic Potential
Are you worried about a new pandemic?
"Worried" is a triggering word more connected to anxiety than having reasonable concern and developing strategies and plans.
See, for example
Three practical actions could help prevent the next pandemic | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/three-practical-actions-could-help-prevent-the-next-pandemic/
Reduced deforestation, better management of wildlife trade and hunting, and better surveillance of zoonotic pathogens before they spill into human populations are all key strategies that could help prevent future pandemics, according to a new report.
Preventing RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) | CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/about/prevention.html
CAUSES ASKS: "Are you worried about a new pandemic?" ME: "Worried"? Not particularly; I've more immediate things to worry about. That said, I also see the inevitability of another pandemic given any number of reasons, from over-population, to environmental destruction forcing subsantially inreased human/animal interaction, to climate- and war-forced migrations, to...to...to... That there are things nations (and states, and individuals) can do to mitigate the severity of the next pandemic is one thing; however, that there is little global (or national, or state, or personal) political will to do so is quite another. it's really up to we humans.
I am worried that our country will politicize any new diseases or pandemics as they did with Covid. This was eyeing opening and so wrong. What a disappointment in our people and leaders.
1. Trump disbanded the US Pandemic Response teams and protocols that took 6 administrations to put into place. We have terribly crippled our ability to detect epidemics before they become pandemics and help to treat and isolate them so they do not spread. 2. This article discusses 9 candidates, but there are MILLIONS of viruses in families that have generated deadly epidemics in the past and we have no way to predict if or when another one (or several) will make that jump. One things we DO know is that another WILL happen! 3. We need Congress to pass a law that will REQUIRE future administations to rebuild and maintain our ability to detect and respond to epidemics anywhere in the world. That is the ONLY way to protect the USA, and the world, from future and worse pandemics.
Yes, research on control and prevention measures needto continue so we are all better prepared.
yes, and we will have more in the future as the ice caps melt, releasing bacteria that has'nt seen the light of day in millions of years.
The longer a virus sticks around, the more people who are unvaxed, and the more mutations will arise.
Re: The Way Causes Frames Its Questions
Since I began visiting Causes, I have wondered why it chooses its questions and frames them the way it does.
I have sometimes wondered if others also have similar questions and more.
I have also occasionally wondered about the subgroupings certain kinds of questions are meant to elicit responses from.
The question in today's lede is an excellent example.
My previous response must include the following at the intersection of irony and sarcasm:
Fear and Anxiety Drive Conservatives' Political Attitudes | Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes
It would be interesting to do a study substantiating the notion that the conservative mind / brain reaches for denial as its first response to perceived stress.
To me that notion would explain much in today's American Politics
1. Trump disbanded the US Pandemic Response teams and protocols that took 6 administrations to put into place. We have terribly crippled our ability to detect epidemics before they become pandemics and help to treat and isolate them so they do not spread. 2. This article discusses 9 candidates, but there are MILLIONS of viruses in families that have generated deadly epidemics in the past and we have no way to predict if or when another one (or several) will make that jump. One things we DO know is that another WILL happen! 3. We need Congress to pass a law that will REQUIRE future administations to rebuild and maintain our ability to detect and respond to epidemics anywhere in the world. That is the ONLY way to protect the USA, and the world, from future and worse pandemics.
i am worried because there are so many anti-vaxxers and covid deniers in congress that could keep any action from being taken in the next pandemic. i'm sure that a democratic president and congressional democrats will do what they can but it is disheartening that republicans are so know nothing, do nothings.
In the world we live in today with the ease of infected people to move around, I think another pandemic is almost certain. And if you add in a dolt of a President that denies it is happening, it may be more than 100% likely. Covid was already pretty much out of control in China before they knew they had a problem. We were even worse in some ways due to #45. Our farmers are dealing with the Avian Flu right now in our chicken producers. It only takes a mutation for that virus to jump to the human population.
But, of course. You'd have to be an ignorant idiot, not to after the last go round.
I am very concerned about the Next pandemic due to the Republicans politicizing the Covid19 pandemic! I feel that we will have a large amount of the population that will ignore the warnings of future disease and that will result in a heavy death toll !
Of course I am worried! No one is wearing masks anymore. Very few! My husband and I still do. People coughing and sneezing but no masks. My question is, why? I made the mistake of pulling down my mask in the grocery store because my glasses kept steaming up, did it a few times. Guess what happened? I ended up getting RSV. Very scary because you can't breathe too well. You can't lay down to sleep because it feels like you're drowning. Almost landed in the hospital! Then of course I gave it to my husband. We stayed away from everyone and disinfected everything because we have a 94 year old at home. Very difficult when you are their caregivers and she has dementia. Thank God she never caught it! So to everyone thinking, no mask for me, stop kidding yourselves. There will be more pandemics no doubt! Do not take this as a conspiracy theory.
I am less worried about the diseases themselves than I am about those who would deny or politicize health care surrounding them, including vaccinations. Health care is NOT politics; when I'm sick, I don't call a congressperson. (And when my country is sick, I don't call an MD. Regrettably, right now our country is very sick, and "the lines are down," no thanks to Republicans.)
too many people died from Covid due to misinformation, stupidity, and not listening to their MDs.
I worry about everything--the Climate Crisis, the Anthropogenic Mass Extinction, Famine, Wars Everywhere, Mass Migration and Pandemics one after another.
Remember that curse?
The one that says: May you Live in Interesting Times...