How to prevent the next pandemic? As 2021 begins with Covid-19 continuing its global spread, scientists have spotlighted three approaches to at least reduce the risk of pandemic potential diseases – screening animals, reducing land-use change and improving health infrastructure.
There can be no one answer to the question at the centre of an anxious debate across a world coping with Covid-19 and wondering what will happen if another one comes, but the global scientific community has been working on multiple tracks to ensure that humankind is better prepared.
Following several multidisciplinary studies in 2020, scientists now firmly believe a “perfect storm” for an outbreak with pandemic potential is created by the combined forces of land-use change, high population density and the presence of interfaces between wildlife and domestic animals.
“We are only as strong as our weakest ‘link’ given our globally connected society,” Krutika Kuppalli, an expert…
