The key to preventing the next pandemics lies in the protection of natural environments and the protection of biodiversity: this is stated by the international group of 25 researchers led by the American Cornell University, who indicated the countermeasures to be taken in the article published in the journal Nature Communications.
In fact, pandemics begin when disease-carrying animals, such as bats, get close to people, livestock or other animals and transmit new viruses: this was also the case with Sars-CoV-2.
Preserving the environments in which these animals live, therefore, allows us to put a greater distance between humans and the risks to their health.
“The world is focused on how to detect and contain a new pathogen once it is already circulating in humans,” comments Raina Plowright, who led the study, “rather than on how we can prevent that pathogen from coming into contact with the human population."
The researchers' prevention strategy is based on two studies published in 2022, which document how bats, when they lose their natural habitats and food sources, divide their large populations into smaller groups that scatter towards agricultural areas and urban.
Furthermore, when subjected to stress, these animals produce urine that contains many more viruses.
The study authors therefore identified interventions that can break the link between environmental changes and the spread of pathogens.
The first thing to do is to protect the places where animals find their food sources, as well as those they use for refuge and aggregation.
The protection of those areas that act as a buffer between human communities and wildlife is also fundamental.
“There are billions of microbes in nature – says Plowright – but we rarely get sick, because there are many, many barriers between us and new pathogens”.
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