How governments around the world can act now to prevent future pandemics

Surging demand for wild meat, environmental destruction, climate change and intense, unsustainable farming could unleash future pandemics.

These are wiping out natural habitats and seeing humanity exploit more species, bringing people into closer contact with disease vectors, writes Unep executive director Inger Andersen. About 60% of human infections are estimated to have an animal origin, and of all new and emerging human infectious diseases, 75% jump species, “interacting in unpredictable ways that can have negative outcomes”.

Each year two 2million people, mostly in low- and middle-income countries with complex development problems, die from neglected zoonotic diseases, the report says. Social and economic issues that complicate the management of zoonotic disease, such as poverty, health-care inequity, waste management and the quadruple burden of disease faced by the population, must be considered.

“Many zoonoses are climate sensitive and a number of them will thrive in a warmer, wetter, more disaster-prone world foreseen in future scenarios,” it says. “There is concern that many wildlife farms are prone to low biosecurity and also enable illegally poached wildlife to be ‘laundered’ - presented and sold as legally farmed animals. Both factors would increase the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks.”

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