Mankind faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emanating from the tropical forests of Africa, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has since been in the first line of search for new pathogens.
"We are now in a world where new pathogens will emerge," he told CNN. "And that is what poses a threat to humanity."
As a young researcher, Muyembe took the first blood samples from victims of a mysterious disease that caused bleeding and killed about 88% of patients and 80% of staff who were working at Yambuku Hospital when the disease was first discovered. first.
Blood samples were sent to Belgium and the US, where scientists found a worm-shaped virus. They called it "Ebola" after the river where the disease was first discovered.
Its identification relied on a chain linking the most remote parts of Africa's forests to high-tech laboratories in the West.
Now, the West must rely on African scientists in Congo and elsewhere to act as warning guards against future diseases.
Speaking exclusively to CNN, Muyembe warned of many zoonotic diseases, those that pass from animals to humans.
Yellow fever, various forms of influenza, brucellosis, etc., are among those that are transmitted from animals to humans, often through a rodent or an insect.
They have caused epidemics and pandemics before.
Does Muyembe think future pandemics will be worse than this one of 2020?
"Yes, I think so," he replies.
Since the first infection transmitted from animals to humans, known as "yellow fever", was identified in 1901, scientists have found at least 200 other viruses known to cause disease in humans.
According to research by Mark Wellhouse, professor of epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, new species of viruses are being discovered rapidly. Most of them originate from animals.
Experts say the growing number of emerging viruses is largely the result of ecological destruction and wildlife trade.
As their natural habitats become extinct, animals such as rats, bats and insects survive where larger animals become extinct. They are able to live together with human beings and are often suspected to be the factors that can bring new diseases to humans.
Source: CNN
