Can you predict a pandemic? - ForumDaily
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Can a pandemic be predicted?

Фото: Depositphotos

Two years ago, an epidemic of Zika virus, 3 of Ebola virus in West Africa, 8 of cases of pandemic influenza H1N1, which spread throughout the world, was recorded in Brazil. Writes The Idealist, with reference to The Atlantic, scientists are tired of sudden epidemics and decided to collect all data on virus threats, catalog and learn how to predict future outbreaks.

For this 8 years ago, the project PREDICT was created. The United States Agency for International Development has allocated $ 10 million for the development of the 100 project. Over the years, scientists in the framework of the project discovered 1000 new viruses.

Another project Global Virome (GVP), which is still at the concept stage, suggests looking for viruses of birds and mammals that can potentially migrate to humans. GVP says that there are about half a million such viruses, and in order to detect and catalog them, an investment of 3,4 billion dollars is needed. The project promises to shift the focus of our healthcare "from outbreak response to active preparation for them" and "complete the era of pandemics."

В свою очередь ученые-вирусологи Джемма Геогеган и Эдвард Холмс считают, что этот проект не поможет избежать пандемий по той простой причине, что существует слишком много вирусов. Их было идентифицировано около 4 400; но на самом деле видов вирусов – миллионы, хотя лишь небольшая часть из них может, вероятно, перекочевать к людям. «GVP будет полезен для понимания эволюции вирусов, но я не понимаю, как он поможет нам разобраться в том, что следующее заразит нас, — говорит Геогеган. — В результате мы просто смиримся с обширностью виросферы».

There are ways to narrow the list of suspects. Many teams attempted to map the geographic hot spots where diseases are most likely to occur, noting areas with tropical forests and many species of mammals. Others tried to find features in viruses that make it easier for them to spread between people. But Geoghegan and Holmes argue that this is not very much sense.

This is partly due to the fact that the results of such studies are too broad. This work is usually based on information about past epidemics — events that are relatively rare and it is therefore difficult to obtain reliable samples. For example, Saudi Arabia in most cases is poorly marked on the maps of the hot spots of the disease, and yet it was there that the MERS virus recently moved to people from camels. “We are trying to predict really rare events, using scant information, and fail,” says Geoghegan.

В конечном счете, вероятность того, что данный вирус вызовет вспышку, зависит от самого вируса, животных, которые являются его носителями, людей и окружающей среды, в которой все они живут. «В каждой из этих категорий существует слишком много переменных, которые могут повлиять на возникновение болезни, — говорит Дженнифер Гарди из Университета Британской Колумбии. — Трудно моделировать эффект этих данных, плюс эти факторы, вероятно, будут взаимодействовать таким образом, что мы не сможем понять, что именно привело к эпидемии».

Сложно даже оценить вероятность эпидемий от уже известных вирусов. Например, Эбола и Зика были обнаружены в 1976 и 1947 годах соответственно, но обоим злодеям удалось застать мир врасплох в этом десятилетии. «Это самая простая ситуация, — говорит Кристиан Андерсен из Научно-исследовательского института Скриппса, — но нам все ещё требуется около 10-20 лет до того момента, как мы научимся это делать хорошо. Следующий сложный момент: спрогнозировать большую вспышку такого вируса, как птичий грипп H7N9, который, как правило, не вызывает серьезных вспышек». И снова Андерсен говорит, что сейчас такой прогноз невозможен, но требуется больше исследований.

However, it is simply impossible to predict whether a newly discovered virus in animals can move to humans and cause a pandemic, he says. “What we are trying to predict will probably happen once, at one of tens of billions of meetings, and in the case of one virus out of millions of potential candidates. You will be lost in numbers. ” Even machine learning - using computers to learn patterns will not solve the problem, because there is not enough data.

Proponents of prognostic initiatives say it’s too early to devalue such approaches. If the same arguments were heard in meteorology a century ago, “we would not have data that now allow us to predict the weather fairly well,” says Jonne Mazeth, director of the PREDICT, who is also a member of the project steering committee Global Virome.

“Can we predict pandemics?” The answer right now is no. But just because it is difficult to predict anything, does not mean that we cannot quantify the risk in a useful, effective way - by logic, ”adds Barbara Khan of the Carey Ecosystem Research Institute. No predictions are perfect, but at least we can mark the boundaries of the probable.

Resources are not infinite, and public health is an area that has been historically underfunded. Geoghegan argues that it would be better to focus on approaches that will do the best. According to the scientist, this is primarily related to the “fault line”, where people and animals meet - regions where people are more susceptible to animal viruses, because they cut down forests or hunt wild animals for meat, or there is an active migration due to political instability.

Mazet agrees and says that the project Global Virome plans to look for viruses on such fault lines. Scientists want, for example, to study the blood and meat of wild animals or the urine or saliva of rodents living in human houses. friends to virologists.

But Geoghegan and Holmes argue that the search for these viruses in animals is still "labor of Sisyphus." There will be too much, but there will be no opportunity to accurately assess the risk of transition to people. The project, they said, would be better to focus on people - for example, merchants of bushes, and not on the meat itself. “People are the best guards: the virus found in humans can obviously spread, which is not so obvious to many viruses identified through the biodiversity research of other animals,” they say.

Currently, victory over pandemics is impossible; but it is important to spot them as soon as possible. “Forget about detecting a virus before it appears. Forget even finding the first patient, says Andersen. “The task is to detect the first cluster of cases.” This is possible if health care workers regularly look for viruses in people living on the lines of fractures of the disease, and the emergence of portable pocket DNA sequencers can make such searches real.

However, these goals should not be construed as conflicting. Kevin Olivan from Ecohealth alliancewho works with PREDICT, says that it would be impractical to study all the fault lines. “We need tools that will help direct our resources to the sites, types of hosts and viruses that are of greatest concern,” he says. Projects like PREDICT and Global Virome Project, may not act as crystal balls for future outbreaks, but they “help us set priorities for disease surveillance in the field.”

PREDICT, through its work on detecting animal viruses, has also helped develop analytical tools and strengthen laboratories in developing countries, which will allow us to make the kind of observation that Geogegan, Andersen, and others require. Everyone agrees that it is vital. “If we are unable to provide even the routine observation of hot spots, we have no chance of getting something even more complicated, such as predicting an epidemic,” said Gardy.

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