Unless there is a radical change in the global approach to infectious diseases, future pandemics will occur more often, spread faster, cause more damage to the global economy and kill more people, according to the report on biodiversity and pandemics released on Thursday 29 October by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
But experts also point out that escaping the pandemic era is possible with a prevention-based approach, with much lower economic costs than a simple reaction.
This report follows a workshop organised by IPBES in June. At the request of German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze, it received financial support from Germany.
It points out that 540,000 to 850,000 viruses unknown in nature could infect humans.
According to the report, although it originated in microbes carried by animals, the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic was entirely determined by human activities. Deforestation and wildlife trade are cited as risk factors.
Experts say that the risk of a pandemic can be significantly reduced by decreasing human activities that lead to biodiversity loss by better conservation of protected areas and by taking measures that reduce unsustainable exploitation of areas with high biodiversity.
Among the policy options proposed to governments are: - the establishment of an intergovernmental council on pandemic prevention; - taxation of activities with a high pandemic risk, such as meat consumption and livestock production; - the valorisation of the knowledge of indigenous populations and local communities in pandemic prevention programmes; - the institutionalisation of the One Health approach; - the integration of health impact assessments of pandemic and emerging disease risks into major development and land-use planning projects.
Link to the executive summary of the report: https://bit.ly/34Fc8Pw and to the full report: https://bit.ly/3mBLRrI (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)