How to Prevent another Pandemic and Save our Planet

As the death toll rises, new variants emerge, and the economic impacts skyrocket, preventing another pandemic with the magnitude of COVID-19 should be of paramount importance to every human on Earth. Global leaders have taken this task seriously, but seem to have stunningly missed the bevy of science pointing to where their investments should go. Almost all attention and financing to address new disease outbreaks has gone to actions that contain but do not prevent them. We absolutely need rapid vaccine deployment, new drugs, and stronger health systems. But none of these get at the root cause of the growing tide of pandemic risk.

All pandemics since the turn of the 20th century have occurred because a virus has moved — or spilled over — from an animal to a person, with the exception of cholera. For all emerging infections (many of which don’t reach pandemic status), 50% have jumped into people from wildlife, and the proportion has grown in recent decades. (1)

The near total absence of inclusion of research showing the vital link between spillover and pandemic risk in plans to prevent the next pandemic drove us to convene a task force of experts to evaluate and summarize the evidence on pathogen spillover and provide recommendations for further research, actions and investments.

The science shows that if we are to prevent another COVID-19, we have no choice but to protect the living world and take better care of our relationships with other species. Critically, we found that investments in spillover prevention confer multiple wins. As the most prominent example, protecting tropical forests protects the climate and our health, which is critical given the dire findings of last week’s IPCC report.

What drives spillover?

A number of forces push pathogens to move from animals to people. The destruction of forests, particularly in the tropics, looms heavily. Forest edges, created when forests are cleared, bring people into contact with wildlife (2).

The hunting, trade, and consumption of wildlife can also promote sharing of pathogens. 26.5% of mammals in the wildlife trade harbor 75% of known viruses that spread from animals to humans (3). Wild animal hunting and consumption has been associated with many viral disease outbreaks, including HIV and Ebola.

Livestock — particularly in large numbers — can spread diseases between wildlife and people. Farmed animals often have low genetic diversity which can supercharge disease spread among animals and from animals to humans. Diseases like influenza and even COVID-19 have spread from captive animals into people. As mass-scale food-animal production becomes more common, we must make sure we have the surveillance tools in place to ensure we don’t unleash more diseases around the world. (4)

How can we prevent pandemics at the source?

If we lived on a planet with a stable climate and a thriving biosphere, and national governments that consistently worked in harmony when crises erupt, post-spillover approaches like vaccines, drugs, and health systems might be adequate to keep disease outbreaks in check. But this is not the world we live in. To prevent pandemics we must stop spillover, which can help us make gains in other areas — whether it’s climate, conservation, or indigenous rights — that are critical goals of our time.

No matter what you do, where you live, whether you are rich or poor, you have a major stake in the global response to COVID-19 and how we keep such an event from ever happening again. Right now, we need a course correction that acknowledges what we know we must do based on the science. We can prevent spillover and when we do, we can promote actions that build a healthier, more just, and sustainable world.

(1) Jones, K., Patel, N., Levy, M. et al. Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature 451, 990–993 (2008).

(2) Faust CL, McCallum HI, Bloomfield LSP, et al. Pathogen spillover during land conversion. Ecol. Lett. 2018; 21: 471–83.

(3) Shivaprakash KN, Sen S, Paul S, Kiesecker JM, Bawa KS. Mammals, wildlife trade, and the next global pandemic. Curr Biol 2021; published online July 7.

(4) White RJ, Razgour O. Emerging zoonotic diseases originating in mammals: a systematic review of effects of anthropogenic land-use change. Mamm Rev 2020; 50: 336–52.