New deadly pandemics will strike humanity

I recently read a press release that caught my attention, I share with you part of what I read "there will be a greater interaction between animals, people, possibly vectors, and pathogens, which facilitates the jump of species, that is, our world is increasingly vulnerable to new emergencies", in other words, we will be more and more exposed to the emergence of new and deadly pandemics.

To provide some context, it is necessary to point out that, according to the World Health Organization, a pandemic is understood as the sudden appearance of a disease that affects a large part of the population and in many countries, and according to data revealed by this important organization, the most deadly in history was smallpox, which caused 300 million deaths and was only eradicated 40 years ago.

In addition to smallpox, one of the most serious pandemics in recent history was the Spanish flu, and although there is no exact data, it is speculated that it killed between 2% and 6% of the world population, and a curious fact is that it is not known where the first case arose, but, nevertheless, the name of Spanish flu arose because it was in that country where this deadly disease had the greatest impact.

The emergence of smallpox, Spanish flu and the current pandemic due to the new coronavirus may be due to evident changes in climate, land use or animal population management, so the scientific community deduces that there is a high probability of increased interaction between animals, people, possibly vectors, and pathogens, which will make us more vulnerable to the emergence of pandemics.

The above reveals that in the future new and deadly pandemics will hit humanity, since it is unlikely to slow down the accelerated climate change and the subsequent interaction of animals, people, vectors and pathogens, hence, the hypothesis of environmental groups gains strength by stating that protecting biodiversity will reduce the occurrence of future pandemics.

➊ HBR Preparing for a Pandemic - Harvard Business Review. Link

➋ Huremović D Brief History of Pandemics (Pandemics Throughout History). Link