Viruses are a dangerous threat to human beings, yet we can do nothing but lockdown and isolate. Obviously, humans are to be blamed. The entry of zoonotic viruses, infectious pathogens, and life-threatening bacteria in our world began long ago due to population growth, economic expansion and wild-life habitat destruction, deforestation. COVID-19 is referred to as a “once in a century event,” but it is possible that the next pandemic will strike earlier than you think as there are worse viruses than COVID. We will definitely see more pandemics in the next few decades. Because of the recent increased incidence of global epidemics (such as SARS, MERS, and Ebola), and because of social and environmental changes driven by humans that may have led to the emergence of COVID-19, we may foresee this with good confidence. The good news is that we have been taught by Covid-19 that the danger is real and hideously costly, making us more likely to finally act on the warnings. The question is whether we really can.

First, experts in infectious diseases suggest, to detect any new infection rapidly, we need monitoring of viruses circulating in humans, and maybe in animals as well. China’s hospitals have a system that automatically warns central health authorities of many unusual clusters of disease, a good way to spot when a new virus begins to spread in humans. Second, we have diseases to diagnose. Most infections are symptomatically diagnosed, such as a cough or fever, or rash; even in modern hospitals, the germs responsible for the symptoms are seldom established. In principle, modern technology will classify germs that we have not yet seen before. The third line of protection will be to create vaccines and therapeutics proactively until the entire planet is contaminated by the virus. To finance the production of vaccines for potentially pandemic viruses, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was founded in 2017. Yet there has been a slow improvement. Efforts to create a similar antiviral drug alliance have never gotten off the ground. More urgent efforts might be motivated by Covid-19. Ultimately, we need to avoid wildlife viruses from moving from non-human animals to humans in order to prevent pandemics.

But which viruses are we supposed to invest in?

The new pathogens already affecting humans, which would be discovered by enhanced monitoring, might be a plausible priority. Some virologists suggest that, before they find us, not after, we can think about viruses. But how can we track thousands, maybe millions of new viruses yet undiscovered roaming about on the earth and find vaccines for each one of them? This seems impossible, so it’s better to start by tracking the ones already present in humans or nearing them. Pandemics aren’t just one-country problems, All the countries should come together, unite their resources, and fight the battle that we have against humans.