It’s all connected: coronaviruses and other emerging infectious diseases, loss of biodiversity, and destruction of the environment by humans. Around the world, pathogens and parasites are responding to the changes in unexpected ways, fueling the rise of pandemics and the extinction of countless plant and animal species.

But all is not lost. To stave off disaster, scientists must focus on monitoring and limiting the spread of a handful of high-risk viruses, especially on farms and in live-animal markets, and governments must step up efforts to track pathogens, protect wildlife and strengthen public-health systems, Canadian and American experts argue in a new paper.

Led by computational ecologist Timothée Poisot, an associate professor of biology at Université de Montréal, and Colin J. Carlson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University’s School of Public Health, the research by scientists in Canada, the United Kingdom, U.S. and China is published today in the inaugural issue of Nature Reviews in Biodiversity.

As well as providing an overview of current science, the scientists offer a historical perspective on global pandemics and the spillover events (viral, bacterial and others) that have occurred since 1960. They then make several recommendations, particularly on preventing future pandemics, and more broadly on improving surveillance techniques in public health.

We asked Poisot, whose co-authors include Cole Brookson, a member of Carlson’s lab and guest researcher in Poisot’s lab at UdeM, to tell us more about the report and its implication for future policy.

(Newswise/MF)