The Next Pandemic

People don’t want to see any more pandemics, notes Nita Madhav, Senior Director of Epidemiology & Modeling at Ginkgo Biosecurity, the biosecurity and public health unit of Ginkgo Bioworks.  

The world is collectively traumatized by the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, Madhav says in this episode of One World, One Health. 

But just because we don’t want to see another pandemic doesn’t mean we won’t get one. The world isn’t doing enough to keep an eye out for the next one, says Madhav. 

“Covid was a trial run for something that could be a lot worse. It was really a wakeup call that we need to have better systems in place,” she says.

In any given year, she estimates, there’s a two to three percent chance of a pandemic. But human behavior is raising those odds. More frequent travel is one factor; so is climate change. 

What’s she watching most closely right now? H5N1 bird flu. “The more it spreads within mammals that gives it more chances to mutate. As it mutates, as it changes, there is a greater chance it can infect humans. If it gains the ability to spread efficiently from person to person, then it would be hard to stop.” 

Listen as Madhav tells One World, One Health about how she measures these risks and what the world needs to be doing to watch for and to reduce these risks.