From Animal Origins to Global Outbreaks: Rethinking Pandemic Preparedness in a Post-COVID World
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant shortcomings in worldwide pandemic preparedness, highlighting systems that were mostly reactive, disjointed, and insufficiently focused on the ecological sources of infections. To deal with the persistent threat of zoonotic diseases, which make up most of the emerging infectious diseases, there is need to make a significant change to our current approach. This review analyses materials from epidemiology, environmental science, and global health policy, showing evidence regarding the animal origins of these viruses, their transmission dynamics, and the significant deficiencies in pandemic preparedness that the outbreaks have shown. It also submits that effective preparedness in a post-COVID world needs to be completely reoriented towards a proactive and integrated One Health framework. This framework emphasizes that human, animal, and environmental health are all linked and focuses on the factors that lead to viral spillover, such as the trade in animals, changes in land use, and the intensification of agriculture. At the same time, it requires a comprehensive approach that tackles the underlying reasons of emergence and creates structures that are strong, cooperative, and fair to deal with outbreaks when they happen. To lower the likelihood of future pandemics, we need to completely rethink how we prepare for them. This new way of thinking is necessary to lessen the effects of future pandemics in a world that is becoming more connected and less stable environmentally. This means putting prevention at the source through strong, collaborative surveillance and tackling the ecological factors that cause zoonotic spillover.
Keywords: zoonotic coronaviruses, pandemic preparedness, spillover, One Health, surveillance, COVID-19
