Top scientists from Hong Kong, worldwide to join forces under new alliance backed by Aids-cure pioneer to fight future pandemics

Renowned virologist Professor David Ho says University of Hong Kong and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have vowed support for team prepping against future pandemics
‘We don’t want to go through what we went through over the last 3½ years, so we want to be better prepared,’ he adds

Hong Kong healthcare and hospitals

Sammy Heung

Published: 9:00am, 18 Jul 2023

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Top scientists from Hong Kong and worldwide are joining forces under a new alliance to tackle the next global pandemic, with a renowned virologist behind the project warning that more viruses might make the jump from animals to humans.

Columbia University’s Professor David Ho told the Post that the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Beijing’s Tsinghua University had given their blessing to the plan to build a “Pandemic Research Alliance”.

The scholar, who is acclaimed for discovering the efficacy of a cocktail antiretroviral treatment for Aids, on Saturday said he was in talks with the University of Melbourne about joining the alliance.

“We want to define what are the most important viral threats for pandemics, such as what we went through with coronaviruses, influenza viruses and what we call paramyxoviruses,” he said. “All of these could be easily transmitted from person to person via the respiratory route and therefore could spread very quickly.

Columbia University’s Professor David Ho is acclaimed for discovering the efficacy of a cocktail antiretroviral treatment for Aids. Photo: Sammy Heung

“Once we define the most important threats, we could start to study them in greater detail to see if we could develop drugs, antibodies and vaccines, and get them ready. Some of them don’t have any of those, and so we could get them ready should one of those emerge as a virus-causing pandemic.”

Ho was one of the first scientists to identify HIV and chart its effects on patients. He was the first doctor to be named Time magazine’s Man of the Year, in 1996, after his work on a treatment for Aids helped to improve survival rates.

The virologist collaborated with HKU’s Professor Yuen Kwok-yung when the city had an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003, and the pair tested antiviral drugs to improve treatment options.

Ho later established a multidisciplinary team of experts at Columbia University during the Covid-19 pandemic with the aim of producing a vaccine.

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The idea of forming the alliance was inspired by a conversation among scientists from the four institutes about future threats as the recent pandemic began to wane, he said.

“We don’t want to go through what we went through over the last 3½ years so we want to be better prepared,” he said. “We expect another pandemic and another pandemic, but no expert could tell you when or where or exactly which part.

“With the environmental changes, the dynamics of human interaction with various animal species are changing and cause perhaps more jumping of viruses from animals to humans and some of them will have pandemic potential.”

The Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020 and has resulted in more than 767 million confirmed cases and over 6.95 million deaths around the world.

The University of Cambridge in 2020 predicted the pandemic would cost the global economy US$82 trillion by 2025.

Professor Ho is teaming up with HKU microbiologist Professor Yuen Kwok-yung as part of a global alliance to combat future pandemics. Photo: Foon Lee

HKU’s Yuen, who co-founded the alliance, on Monday said that although other scientists were also forming teams, the one under Ho had a unique advantage because it was drawing from experts across the Pacific Ocean.

He explained that data from past global pandemics showed that such events were becoming more frequent and largely originated from regions on the ocean’s rim.

The different specialities offered by each participating institution would also be crucial in preparing for future outbreaks, Yuen added.

“HKU is best at identifying new viruses as we have found more than 80 new ones in humans and animals. Ho’s team specialise in immunology. They have a special understanding of antiviral resistance,” he said. “For Tsinghua University, they did a lot of research and worked on understanding the structure of antibodies. They have also created antibodies for Covid-19 which have been commercialised.

“Researchers in Australia have expertise in pathogenesis. Without knowing any of these areas, it is impossible to prepare for the pandemic.”

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Yuen added that forming an official alliance would make it easier to share research and described such efforts as “complementary”.

“Our exchange of technology, virus strains and specimens will be much closer,” he said. “We will be able to have a division of labour and develop results much faster. In the past, we would not know what others were doing.”

The HKU scholar said the alliance’s first step would be identifying viruses originating in animals that could potentially jump to humans. He also expected more experts from regions such as Europe might join in the future.

The world needs China on board to avoid another pandemic disaster

Ho said Hong Kong and the mainland had played a significant role in combating pandemics over the past 20 years and expected that to increase with time.

“Hong Kong faced Sars, then it faced H5N1. I personally witnessed the expansion of expertise here and the greater commitment on the part of scientists and government officials. That improvement is dramatic and admirable,” he said, referring to an outbreak of the bird flu in 1997.

“The same could be said for the institutions in mainland China. It’s night and day difference comparing Covid-19 and Sars responses. The expertise is so much greater now and will continue to grow. We, working in the United States, used to come and help. And now the situation is quite different. We’ve come and collaborated and helped each other.”