Into the unknown: virus hunters and their quest to stop the next pandemic

Experts estimate that there could be more than a million viruses with potential to infect humans but very few have been catalogued, much less studied

Greater understanding of these pathogens might have better prepared the world for the Covid-19 epidemic but research has been held back by a range of factors, including a lack of funding, they say

Reading Time:6 minutes

Published: 12:00pm, 20 Aug 2020Updated: 10:11am, 21 Aug 2020

For months, the World Health Organisation has been preparing an international mission to China to find the origins of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

The goal is to track down the people first known to be infected with the pathogen, finding out where they went and what they did. That trail, the WHO hopes, will lead to the animals that passed this previously unknown virus to humans, sickening more than 21 million people – and counting – around the world.

The start date and members of the mission remain unknown but one thing is clear: the scientists will be confronting a huge gap in knowledge about what viruses are out there and how they make the leap to humans.

Researchers estimate that there could be more than 1 million viruses with the potential to infect humans and the technology exists to get a clearer picture of what’s out there and where the risks are.

But so far only a small fraction of those pathogens have been catalogued and there is limited capacity to monitor how they show up in humans, with progress held back by a lack of funding, international coordination and political will, they say.

Wang Linfa has been this way before.

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