Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has warned that humanity has stepped into an era of pandemics with the COVID-19 being the first of many to come.
According to a recently published study titled ‘Emerging Pandemic Diseases’, proliferation of deforestation, urban crowding, and wet markets will result in increased environmental degradation, a key factor in disease emergence, which will accelerate the rate of pandemics in the future.
Some older diseases are expected to reemerge like the West Nile virus and antibiotic-resistant bacteria have emerged again in the recent past. Some will be transmitted from wild animals to human beings such as SARS, MERS, and SARS-COV-2, the coronavirus which causes the COVID-19 infection, the study says.
Evidence suggests that SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 are only the latest examples of a deadly barrage of coming coronavirus infections and other diseases.
Rather than responding to a viral outbreak with a patchwork approach which includes emergency declarations and a spurt of funding to find its cure, governments and healthcare organizations worldwide must proactively work and take preemptive measures to prevent the emergence of the pandemics in the future, the study recommends.
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