“It’s a cautionary tale,” said BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood in the latest episode of the I AM BIO Podcast.
We’ve refrained from talking about “Tiger King” in this newsletter—but it’s “a symbol of the wider problems that we have that are causing pandemics,” explains podcast guest Catherine Machalaba, Policy Advisor at EcoHealth Alliance, which researches emerging infectious zoonotic diseases.
Back up. How did we get to this new reality in which we’re all glued to this show? We know the coronavirus originated in an animal—most likely a bat, as the EcoHealth Alliance previously explained—and humans’ increased interactions with animals in the wild and in captivity make us more susceptible to a pandemic caused by a zoonotic disease.
“We know there are about 1.6 million viruses in mammals on Earth, so having a sense of what’s out there is really important,” said Catherine.
SARS was an early warning to boost international preparedness and coordination, she said, but as the COVID-19 pandemic shows, we’re still unprepared.
“The value of prevention is invisible,” she continued. “The cost now of not taking action is so visible in our daily lives, and we really need to act to prevent that in the future.”
One Health policies can help, so we can better understand how everything on the planet is interconnected and even see early warnings about future pandemics.
So, what do we do now? “Reversing this existential threat will require better environmental stewardship, compassion for living creatures, and better global cooperation to monitor infectious disease outbreaks so we can mitigate future threats,” said Jim.
Listen at www.bio.org/podcast or wherever else you get your podcasts, including Apple, Google, and Spotify.
Learn more about the importance of One Health.
More Health Care News:
Reuters: Novavax launches its first coronavirus vaccine test on humans
“The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said that 10 experimental vaccines were being tested on humans, including the Novavax compound.”
STAT News: Merck leaps into Covid-19 vaccine race, aiming to test two different candidates this year
“Merck, one of the largest vaccine makers in the world, is entering the Covid-19 arena with an announcement on Tuesday it is developing two different vaccines for Covid-19 and is also licensing an oral drug that might treat the virus.”
The New York Times: Federal scientists publish remdesivir data
“Remdesivir shortened recovery time from 15 days to 11 days in hospitalized patients. The study defined recovery as ‘either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization.’”