As the world grapples with the toll of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists are warning the funding needed to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak is severely lacking — leaving everyone vulnerable.
And to catch the disease spillover from animals to humans at the source, there needs to be a global push to reduce deforestation and restrict and monitor wildlife trade, as well as livestock. Programs to monitor the health of both the wildlife and the people were established in Gabon, the Republic of Congo and other countries to detect the disease earlier, said Refisch, who contributed to a similar U.N. report on the prevention of pandemics earlier this year.
"It's a horrible hygiene situation packing live, dead, wild, domestic animals together," the World Wildlife Fund's Margaret Kinnaird, who co-authored Thursday's report. Yet, the scale of the industry far outpaces that with the value of illegal wildlife trade pegged at as much as $23 billion in 2016, according to the World Bank.
Wanna know how much damages a pandemic will cost instead if we didn't prevent them? It will be at least $ 8.8 trillion.
Masks for life. Just like China. Welcome to your new normal.