The next pandemic

Why am I writing about the next pandemic when we aren’t even within sight of ending the current one? Simply because the threat of the next one is there and may strike sooner than is convenient for us.

If there is one thing COVID taught us it is the need to be prepared and act quickly. Our government failed on both counts. It shouldn’t fail again.

The Philippines ranks 79th among 98 countries in COVID-19 response. The Lowy Institute said the Philippines lagged behind most of our Southeast Asian neighbors. Our government’s handling of the global health threat received a score of 30.6 out of 100.

I came across a report of the BBC, which cited three potentially lethal pandemics that may engulf the world. The next big threats: MERS in camels in Africa; Nipah virus in bats in Asia, and a pig influenza pandemic.

“The pig pandemic is upon us,” the BBC report warns. The H1N1 virus (or swine flu) raged in 74 countries across the globe in 2009. A year later, when the WHO declared an end to the pandemic, up to 575,400 people had died, the BBC reports.

As it turns out, factory style mass production of pigs is the perfect incubator for the disease. But don’t blame the pigs, experts tell BBC.

“We know that pigs are not usually the originators of the virus, but that they act as a petri-dish, mixing up influenzas from humans, birds, and perhaps other species, and then creating more lethal concoctions that can spread back to other species,” says Nicola Lewis, an evolutionary biology professor at the UK’s Royal Veterinary College.

In fact, she says, the biggest reason for having so many strains of flu among European pigs is that humans infect pigs with our own seasonal flu each year. Humans and pigs are sharing and mixing viruses.

“The good news is,” the BBC assures, “if you’re fit and healthy, catching H1N1 now will likely result in mild flu symptoms that pass in a couple of weeks.

“The bad news is that influenza viruses can jump between species and mix and mingle with other influenza strands. It’s these new concoctions that scientists worry about: they have the ability to cause the significant health issues, death and worldwide disruption that we’re seeing with COVID-19.”

A study sampled 18,000 pigs in 2,500 European pig farms and the scientists found half the number of farms visited had influenza A viruses – those which can become human pandemic viruses. In other words, they found a pandemic waiting to happen.

Stopping the virus is made harder by human activity: from the way we produce our food to the way we travel.

The experts told BBC that “20 years ago, if a new virus cropped up in a small pig farm it would probably have dissipated rapidly, without many hosts to infect. Not anymore…”

With intense and increasing farming of pigs, humans are helping provide a very nice playground for viruses, one scientist said.

With hundreds of thousands of hosts to choose from, these viruses can jump and adapt all the time, the BBC points out. This makes the work of scientists incredibly complicated; they’re working with a constantly moving target.

The international trading of pigs complicates matters.  “Animal trading plays (a crucial role) in bringing together diverse viruses from different continents, which can then combine and generate new pandemic viruses,” write the authors of a 2016 report on the origins of the 2009 pandemic.

Reports BBC: “China is an example. The country regularly imports pigs from other parts of the world for breeding or to repopulate pig stocks that have been wiped out by disease. In doing so, they could be importing new viruses their pigs have not yet encountered, viruses that can harm humans.

“This is particularly concerning when you learn that record numbers of pigs globally are currently being killed by a disease called African Swine Fever (ASF).

“ASF is a highly contagious virus that can survive for months in an infected host. Thankfully, ASF doesn’t infect humans. But its impact on pigs has been substantial.

“In 2019, it was reported that the disease has already killed a quarter of the world’s pigs, including half of China’s swine population. China was massively increasing its pig imports from Brazil and Europe to fill the huge meat supply shortfall caused by the ASF deaths.”

BBC also reports that in Asia, pig farms are even more intensely populated than in Europe. The disease is spread by the controversial (and in many countries, illegal) practice of feeding pigs the blood and remains of other dead pigs that may be infected with ASF.

“Because humans are unaffected by ASF, you wouldn’t know if you were eating a pork burger infected with it. But sling the leftovers in a dumpster for a wild boar to sniff out and two days later that boar will probably be dead – after it infected a few of its closest friends and family.”

Because 75 peercent of the newly emerging diseases currently affecting humans originate in animals, we need to have a serious effort to have our human and animal health scientists work closer than ever.

Budget has been allocated through the intercession of Rep. Joey Salceda to establish a virology research institute under the science and technology department. But the funding of P284 million ($5.9 million) for this year is puny compared with the billions in confidential funds enjoyed by the President.

Can you imagine if the ASF virus mutates to jump from pigs to humans? The high cost of pork in the public market will be the least of our problems.

This is why congressmen should reallocate their pork funds to support scientific efforts to deal with emerging viruses. The hundreds of billions our legislators put in pork barrel funds will do nothing to protect them and us when the next pandemic infects pigs and humans.

We should fund our scientists to do more research that will give us enough warning. And let’s have a contingency action plan, please?

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco