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New emerging zoonotic diseases could trigger another pandemic by 2030, the United Nations has warned in a new report.
Unabated climate and environmental change have moved species ranges, enabling new interactions between species that did not happen before. Such new interactions have increased zoonotic spillovers and may eventually trigger another pandemic, stated the report released by the United Nations Environment Programme on July 16.
Zoonotic diseases are infectious diseases caused by pathogens transferring from non-humans or animal hosts to humans. These diseases have the potential to cause significant global public health concerns due to their ability to spread quickly and unpredictably.
“Changes in land use, deforestation and habitat destruction, urbanization, wildlife trafficking and unsustainable agricultural practices are already considered as activities increasing the risk of the emergence and spread of zoonotic disease,” Navigating New Horizons: A global foresight report on planetary Health and Humans wellbeing, 2024 noted.
It cited recent studies which show that increase in spillover events continues to remain at an annual rate of 5 and 8 per cent. Most common types of pathogens are likely to cause 12 times the fatalities in humans in 2050 compared to 2020.
The report takes cognisance of previous such outbreaks including COVID-19, Ebola, H5N1, MERS, Nipah virus, SARS and influenza A/H1N1 that have resulted in significant human and economic losses.
These diseases have underscored the estimated potential of epidemics previously ignored or unknown pathogens.
For instance, the World Health Organization has so far reported 891 human cases of avian influenza of strain H5N1 from 24 countries. These infections have come from contact with live or dead birds infected by the virus.
This, in combination with the potential of previously unknown or neglected pathogens to cause epidemics (there are an estimated 1.7 million undiscovered viruses in the global virome, the aggregate of all viruses across the entire biosphere), amplifies concern about the issue, the report observed.
It said ecological factors such as land-use changes, certain agricultural practices that disrupt ecosystems and increase human-wildlife interactions, and deforestation play a crucial role in emergence of zoonotic disease, creating conducive environment for zoonotic spillover. Monitoring such factors are important to safeguard planetary health, the report said.