A Virologist has explained the reasons why we're seeing more and more viruses being detected post-Covid.
From monkeypox to bird flu and general influenza, the news headlines have been portraying a sense of alarm, however, Dr. Lindsay Broadbent, from the University of Surrey says the reason there is more viruses appearing is more complicated.
She explained: “From the widespread outbreak of mpox (formerly called monkeypox) in 2022, to the evolving bird flu situation, to recent cases of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID isn’t dominating the headlines as much as it used to.
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“Instead, we’ve been regularly hearing about outbreaks of newly emerging or re-emerging viruses.
“So, is the incidence of virus outbreaks increasing? Or, have we just become better at detecting outbreaks thanks to improved technology developed during the COVID pandemic? The answer may be a bit of both”.
Putting things into perspective, Dr. Broadbent said there are “an estimated 1.67 million viruses yet to be identified that currently infect mammals and birds. Of these, it is thought that up to 827,000 have the potential to infect humans”.
She went on to say: “To understand how viruses emerge, we need to go back to the beginning of life on Earth. There are several theories about how the first viruses came into existence, but they all agree that viruses have been around for billions of years, evolving alongside living things.
“When there’s disruption to this stable co-evolution, that’s when we can run into trouble”.
She also claimed that some of the main drivers of viral emergence in the human population are humans themselves and their actions.
“Agriculture became a common practice more than 10,000 years ago, and with it humans started having close contact with animals. This presented the opportunity for viruses that naturally infected these animals to “species jump” into humans.
“This is called zoonosis. Around 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases are due to zoonosis.
“As human civilisation and technology advanced, the destruction of animal habitats forced animals into new areas in search of food sources.
“Different species that wouldn’t usually have been in contact were now sharing the same environment. Add humans into this equation and you have the perfect recipe for a new virus to emerge”
Climate change is also reportedly a contributing to the spread of viruses.
“For example, arboviruses (viruses spread by arthropods like mosquitoes) are being detected in new areas because the range of countries mosquitoes can survive in is increasing”.
Dr. Broadbent said we’ve known about these factors for a long time and so when Covid-19 emerged and spread like wildfire, “it did not surprise any virologist or epidemiologist..
“It was a matter of when – not if – a pandemic would occur. What was unexpected has been the scale of the COVID pandemic, and the difficulty of effectively limiting the spread of the virus.
“We also couldn’t have predicted the impact that misinformation would have on other areas of public health. Anti-vaccination sentiment in particular has become more commonplace on social media over the past few years, and we’re seeing increased rates of vaccine hesitancy.
“There has also been disruption to routine childhood immunisation programmes, increasing the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles”.
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