May 18, 2024 18:00:00

Experts warn that the next pandemic is likely to be influenza

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, businessman Bill Gates

predicted that a highly infectious virus would kill more people than any world war. But this warning was not heeded, with millions of people around the world still dead from COVID-19, and the pandemic has not yet subsided. A new international survey has found that the majority of frontline experts believe the next major pandemic will be influenza.

Next pandemic likely to be caused by flu virus, scientists warn | Epidemics | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/20/next-pandemic-likely-to-be-caused-by-flu-virus-scientists-warn

A survey conducted by the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) found that 57% of 187 disease experts surveyed believe the next deadly infectious pandemic will be caused by a type of influenza virus.

The reason influenza is considered one of the biggest pandemic threats in history is based on long-term experience that influenza viruses are constantly evolving and mutating, says John Salmanton-Garcia of the University of Cologne in Germany, who conducted the study.

'Every winter, we have flu outbreaks that turn into what could be called mini-pandemics, but they don't stay small forever,' Salmanton-Garcia said.

According to 21% of experts surveyed, the next pandemic threat after influenza will be 'Disease X,' an infectious disease caused by a scientifically unknown virus. Some experts predict that the next pandemic will be caused by a pathogen that suddenly emerged, like the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged in 2019.

The fact is that SARS-CoV-2 continues to be considered a significant threat, with 15% of experts surveyed saying they believe it will return in the near future.

Not to be forgotten are deadly infectious diseases such as

Lassa fever , Nipah virus infection , Ebola hemorrhagic fever and Zika virus infection , but only 1-2% of respondents ranked these as serious global threats, which shows just how dangerous influenza is viewed by experts, Salmanton-Garcia points out.

Influenza is not the only threat to humans. In May 2024, the WHO expressed concern about the spread of H5N1 avian influenza . This avian influenza epidemic began in 2020 and caused severe damage to captive and wild birds. In 2024, it was reported that it had also infected cows and sheep, and in April, the deaths of cats that had drunk milk from infected dairy cows were confirmed.

H5N1 has also been reported in 28 cases of human infection since 2021. So far, no human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, and the WHO has said that the 'public health risk is low.' However, Ed Hutchison, a virologist at the University of Glasgow in the UK, said, 'It was known that pigs could be infected with avian influenza, but it had never infected cattle before, so it was shocking to see cases of H5N1 infection in cattle. The more livestock the virus infects, the higher the risk that the mutated virus will infect humans.'

While influenza is of growing concern to many experts, it has also been noted that vaccines for many types of influenza, including H5N1, are already in place, which is a major advantage over COVID-19, for which a vaccine had to be developed from scratch.

On the other hand, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet been contained, it is true that lessons such as the importance of quarantine measures and vaccines are starting to fade. 'People are coughing into their hands and then shaking hands with the same hands, and no one is wearing masks anymore. We are returning to old bad habits that we may regret in the future,' said Salmanton-Garcia.