HALTING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC BEFORE IT STARTS

During the past decade, attempts to control deadly viruses like SARS and H5N1 have been, out of necessity, almost entirely reactionary. It is time to move beyond that costly approach, which measures impact in death tolls and money spent on diagnosis, treatment, and containment.  We need a more proactive paradigm that allows for use of knowledge on what diseases might be coming and the development of interventions to prevent or at least control the pathogens at their source.

The World Bank estimates that from 1997 to 2009, at least $80 billion was spent responding to just six outbreaks of deadly zoonotic diseases, caused by viruses shared between people and animals. We believe that total could be drastically reduced if the health community can get upstream and predict the risk from these diseases before they emerge rather than waiting to respond after they’ve already begun spreading.

That means going to the most likely source: high-risk transmission interfaces where animals and people come together.