At Davos Summit, Experts Warn In One Voice About A Possibility Of A Global Pandemic
The experts revealed at the Davos summit that a mutated flu virus poses the biggest threat because it can join together with other strains to become deadlier.
With increasing amount of population globally, there is also a larger risk of diseases spreading involved. A discussion on these lines was held at the Davos summit recently.
Ebola, Zika, SARS: a century after the "Spanish flu" killed 50 million people, humanity now risks a new wave of deadly diseases, and in today's globalised world another such pandemic may be unavoidable, experts warned at the Davos summit this week.
reuters
"Pandemics are becoming a real threat to humanity," Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told AFP at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort, reported AFP.
One Davos discussion titled "Are We Ready For the Next Pandemic?" was joined by experts including Sylvie Briand, a specialist in infectious diseases at the World Health Organisation (WHO).b"We know that it is coming, but we have no way of stopping it," she said.
This year marks the centenary of the worst epidemic in history: the so-called Spanish flu -- an outbreak that experts say was actually imported to Europe by troops from the United States coming to fight in World War One. Across the world, the disease killed more people in two years than the four years of fighting had.
Richard Hatchett, director of the public-private Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), said India lost five percent of its population in 1918 -- the only time in the country's history that its population declined.
A century on, a new flu virus is the risk that most worries experts. "The flu is a respiratory virus that is easily transmitted and people can be contagious even before they show symptoms, so it is not easy to control," said Briand. Its numerous forms are also able to "marry" one another or bond with viruses from birds or pigs in potentially deadly new combinations.