The next pandemic will likely be caused by a virus against which we have no immunity. It will jump from an animal to a human, as around three in four new viruses do, in a place where the borders between the natural and the urbanised worlds have blurred into suburban sprawl, deforestation, industrial farming and climate change.
The virus will probably attack our respiratory systems and have a long incubation period, meaning the first human cases will become infected unknowingly, helping its potential spread before symptoms start to show.
