Officially, the pandemic caused by it ended on May 5 after more than three years of health alert. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the threat of “another emerging pathogen with an even more deadly potential” than SARS-CoV-2.
Faced with this international warning, the general director of this body, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, asks to “prepare” for the possibility of the appearance of new pandemics and to carry out the necessary changes so that the response to future threats is faster and more effective. But have we really learned anything from the coronavirus pandemic?
In conversation with this newspaper, the expert in Public Health and Epidemiology from the European University of Madrid, Patricia Guillempoints out that “all governments worldwide have learned that they must have very specific planning to prevent possible emerging diseases and to know how to control that spread in the event that it occurs.”
And it is that, in the opinion of this expert, what was done worse during the most critical days was “the lack of coordination of orders that were transmitted to the population.”
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“It was not known what disease we were facing and wrong messages were given due to this lack of planning and knowledge regarding action plans.”
For this reason, Guillem points out, it is necessary to “invest in Public Health” since “it has been shown that we are at the mercy of any type of transmissible pathogenic microorganism and that shows that we all have to have great coordination and there must be a team formed, not only in diseases that affect humans.”
One Health: a single human, animal and environmental health
Patricia Guillem is committed to the One Health phenomenon, a concept whose literal translation is “one health” to demonstrate that human and animal health are interdependent and require a global collaborative approach. “Regarding that one single health, all health professionals must contribute, not just doctors and epidemiologists.”
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“Most of the diseases that concern the World Health Organization currently live in animal reservoirs that, through zoonoses, produce an animal-human contagion. For this reason, it is essential to include veterinarians, pharmacists, specialists in virology, immunology…”.
It is a reality, he remarks, that the diseases that today could cause a high lethality in the population, are in animals. For example, the virus of , Nipah (which is transmitted from pigs and bats to humans) or Zika (transmitted by mosquitoes).
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“They are endemic diseases, typical of certain geographical areas that, due to globalization, could affect us in a short space of time, as demonstrated by the appearance of COVID-19 in China.”
What diseases are a threat to the world?
In the watch list for priority research and development activities, the WHO points out which are the pathogens that pose a high threat to the population:
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Ebola virus. It is a rare, serious and very lethal disease. The infection is acquired by contact with infected animals, contact with other infected people (through saliva, urine, feces or semen) or with infected objects such as clothing or sheets. The first symptoms are fever, tiredness and headache. Treatment consists of intravenous drugs and there is an effective vaccine for Ebolavirus Zaire.
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viruses of . Cases have decreased markedly since 2017, but transmission continues in countries of the Americas and other endemic regions. The worst of the news is that there is no treatment for the infection by this virus or for the diseases with which it is associated.
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Nipah virus. It is a zoonotic virus with a fatality rate of between 40 and 75%. It can be transmitted to humans from animals such as bats and pigs, but also between humans. There are no specific medications for this disease.
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Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). It was first detected in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and causes fever, cough, and shortness of breath. 35% of the cases of patients notified to the WHO have died.
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Severe Acute Syndrome (SARS). It is a viral respiratory disease that was first detected in Asia in 2003. It is spread by close contact with infected people or by touching contaminated objects. It spreads through the air.
The impact on the world “would depend on the type of disease” and “cannot be generalized.” However, a single case of Ebola “would entail an important health alert due to the degree of transmissibility it has and also the lack of preparation that we may have to respond to such varied diseases.”
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“Right now we have good learning about a respiratory pathogen, COVID-19, but what the WHO wants to tell us is that we must not let our guard down, because the important thing is to continue investing in training, prevention and research.”
International Pathogen Surveillance Network
The WHO has announced the launch of a global support network to protect the population from infectious diseases through the analysis of pathogen genomics. We are talking about the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN). This is a new tool to facilitate communication between different countries and regions and which aims to improve sample collection and analysis systems.
What have we citizens learned from COVID-19?
What we have experienced “will not be forgotten” even if the disease has taken another course. In fact, there are experts who have already compared SARS-CoV-2 with the flu and the famous “flu” of the disease.
The greatest lesson “is that by working together you can achieve a series of health objectives, but it is also very important to pay attention to the health authorities.” “A series of vaccines emerged in record time and this shows that when there is global interest, research accelerates.”
It is essential “not to forget the memory doses”, since there are population groups that are more unprotected, and to invest in oneself with active aging: good nutrition, physical exercise, avoiding toxic habits such as alcohol or tobacco, because “aging in bad conditions in an easy plate for any type of illness”.