What can we learn from previous pandemics to reduce the frequency of emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19?

Abstract

The global risks report of 2020 stated, climate-related issues dominate all of the top-five long-term critical global risks burning the planet and according to the report, “as existing health risks resurge and new ones emerge, humanity's past successes in overcoming health challenges are no guarantee of future results.” Over the last few decades, the world has experienced several pandemic outbreaks of various pathogens and the frequency of the emergence of novel strains of infectious organisms has increased in recent decades. As per expert opinion, rapidly mutating viruses, emergence and re-emergence of epidemics with increasing frequencies, climate-sensitive vector-borne diseases are likely to be increasing over the years and the trends will continue and intensify. Susceptible disease hosts, anthropogenic activities and environmental changes contribute and trigger the ‘adaptive evolution’ of infectious agents to thrive and spread into different ecological niches and to adapt to new hosts. The overarching objective of this paper is to provide insight into the human actions which should be strictly regulated to help to sustain life on earth. To identify and categorize the triggering factors that contribute to disease ecology, especially repeated emergence of disease pandemics, a theory building approach, ‘Total Interpretive Structural Modeling’ (TISM) was used; also the tool, ‘Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification’ analysis (MICMAC) was applied to rank the risk factors based on their impacts on other factors and on the interdependence among them. This mathematical modeling tool clearly explains the strength, position and interconnectedness of each anthropogenic factor that contributes to the evolution of pathogens and to the frequent emergence of pandemics which needs to be addressed with immediate priority. As we are least prepared for another pandemic outbreak, significant policy attention must be focused on the causative factors to limit emerging outbreaks like COVID 19 in the future.

Key Factors That Enable the Pandemic Potential of RNA Viruses and Inter-Species Transmission: A Systematic Review

“…The increase of the human population as a constituent for globalization, technological advances, and worldwide migration, have led to environmental alterations such as fragmentation, deforestation, and the loss of habitat for wildlife [ 34 , 35 ]. As a consequence, wild animals tend to seek shelter near human settlements, increasing the probability of wildlife-human interaction [ 6 ].…”

“…Changes in farming and food consumption patterns increase the rate of interactions between wildlife and humans. For example, the use of wild animals as food near wild habitats are said to increase the probability of pandemic emergence [ 6 , 43 ]. In Asia, live markets are used for trading wild animals such as squirrels, rats, porcupines, as well as wild birds and pigs.…”

“…The Coronaviridae family has been one of the most representative models of viral evolution in nature. With the largest genome among RNA viruses, coronaviruses have been distinguished by their unique changes at the gene level, adopting increasingly efficient forms of transmission broadening their host range while generating a large number of variants thanks to their replication characteristics [ 6 ] and their high mutation rate estimated between 2 to 6 × 10 −4 nucleotides/genome/year. Even though some mutations are usually deleterious, others facilitate transmission and adaptation to new hosts [ 7 ].…”

Clinicopathologic features between different viral epidemic outbreaks involving the skin

“…Lessons from previous epidemics are valuable source of information. 1 , 136 Skin involvement is common in any viral infections, 9 , 10 , 11 , 78 and considering the general alert on the possible co-infection's occurrence, especially in tropical countries, 79 , 80 , 81 indication of clinical, and histopathologic clues to address differential is paramount. A first lesson coming from the only comparable pandemics, the 1918 influenza, is the importance of case identification and isolation, patients managed at home showing a better prognosis than those referred to hospitals.…”

How Do Economic Fluctuations Affect the Mortality of Infectious Diseases?

“…Safety of human beings has always been threatened by infectious diseases ( 1 ), which are the leading cause of death worldwide accounting for a quarter to a third of all mortality ( 2 ). Approximately one new human infectious disease emerges per 8 months on average ( 3 ). In recorded human history, the globe has suffered from many shared infectious diseases ( 4 ), such as the fourteenth century Black Death and the 1918 influenza pandemic, which has caused 25–40 million and 50–100 million deaths, respectively ( 5 , 6 ).…”