by “We should invest in both technology and human resources, specializing in viral infections, respiratory diseases and intensive care”
The associate professor of hygiene and epidemiology, clinical virologist Majorca Gikasgave an interview to the Fm agency and expressed his fears about an upcoming pandemic, which will be worse than that of the coronavirus.
“Through my book, I try to help people understand what we went through, because I don’t think people really understood that it’s something that this has been going on for millions of years. This will continue to happen and we must be prepared for the next pandemic, which may be, or two secondsor in 50 years,” says Gikas Majorkinis characteristically.
“This endemicity has a heavy footprintwhich we also face in hospitals, and it is carried mainly by vulnerable groups, who are still exposed to the virus. What has happened is the virus has come and added an extra burden to the healthcare system and we have to find a way to deal with it, for decades to come”.
As the professor writes in his book “The potential emergence of new viruses and new pandemics will put ever greater pressure on health systems. The health and financial burden of viral infections will increase in the years to come. We will experience waves of new viral pandemics, as has happened on the planet for millions of years. There’s no reason to believe it’s going to stop.
On the contrary, there is possibility of increasing their frequency. Those that manage to establish themselves permanently in the human population will add to the already existing viral infections and will continue to afflict vulnerable and susceptible people, which will also increase constantly with the aging of the population. Technology will help us to better cope with their impacts, but sometimes the pressure they will cause will be significant to dramatic and sometimes unpredictable. »
“We will need to invest in both technology and human resources, specializing in viral infections, respiratory diseases and intensive care, in order to be able to effectively deal with this long-term burden and possible future pandemics. However, this investment is time-consuming. It takes more than 11-12 years everyone has to specialize, and therefore the gaps that arise are impossible to fill in a short time, or in urgent circumstances.
After all, we saw it in this pandemic, when in China they built a hospital in ten days, and they moved staff from other places to staff it. You don’t build staff in ten days. Unless there’s a long term plannot only to educate people, but also to motivate them to go in this direction, then we will have some surprises. If we don’t make that investmentwe are going to face very great difficulties in the next hundred years.”
“Of the pandemics we have seen historically, this one was mild”
Q: Based on historical evidence of pandemics that you list in your book how serious you consider the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to be, the question reasonably arises.
Answer: “Among the pandemics that we have seen historicallythis one was in a light form. Probably if we weren’t in this time when there is a large percentage of vulnerable people, it would pass so slowly. The pandemics that have appeared on the planet are much more deadly. That is, there are viruses that have caused epidemics from which 60% to 70% of the population died, as in South America in the 16th and 17th centuries. And we don’t know what viruses they are. It’s a terribly gray and frightening part of virology, which personally makes me a bit weird, because whereas for example we knew the profile of smallpox (ss: which virus causes it and how it is transmitted) and that it there is a vaccine, for these viruses, we did not even know what profile they had and there is no vaccine. And if the bad scenario happens and they come back, we don’t know how easily they’ll be dealt with.”
Q: History so far has taught us that virus outbreaks are fixed values, will happen again and again. The question is not whether we will see another pandemic. The question is when, how often, and with what consequences do you write in your book. Has the risk of mega-pandemics disappeared? We know what we can do what to do to avoid them?
Answer: “No the risk of mega-pandemics, that is to say pandemics that can kill more than 10% of infected cases, has not disappeared. And it’s not gone because we can’t control which pathogen will jump from animals to humans next. I’m afraid that since the planet is very dense and there is a lot of communication, if a pandemic strikes in a small village in Africa or China, it could be a problem the next day in Canada . And it will be hard to control, so as I said, we will have to invest strategically and for the long term, to face the next pandemic. I think it will be worse, because the profile of the current one was relatively light compared to other pandemics that the planet and I’m afraid it will catch us off guard. For example, a hemorrhagic fever can spread very easily, which would create huge problems, which are also difficult to manage. There is no way to avoid epidemics. It’s a perpetual ecosystem game. Viruses are part of animal and human genomes and always have been, it won’t stop and we have no way to stop them. The only thing we can do is control the effects and better manage the acute phase.”
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