According to scientists, the pathogen that is most likely to cause a new pandemic is the influenza virus.

57% of senior disease experts now believe that a strain of the flu virus will be the trigger of the next global outbreak of deadly infectious illness, according to an international survey involving inputs from a total of 187 senior scientists, set to be released next weekend at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) congress in Barcelona.

This belief is based on long-term research by Cologne University’s Jon Salmanton-García, as it revealed how influenza is constantly evolving and mutating. 

"Each winter influenza appears...You could describe these outbreaks as little pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains that cause them are not virulent enough – but that will not necessarily be the case forever."

As respondents who took the survey varied in their responses, Salmanton-García said "Influenza remained – by a very large degree, the number one threat in terms of its pandemic potential in the eyes of a large majority of world scientists."

Highlighting the neglect of precautions learned during the Covid-19 pandemic, Salmanton-García emphasized, "People have gone back to coughing into their hands and then shaking hands with other people. Mask-wearing has disappeared. We are going back to our old bad habits. We may come to regret that."

A mysterious virus and Covid 

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According to 21% of experts who partook in the study, after influenza, the second most likely to trigger a pandemic is a virus dubbed Disease X which is still vague to science. 

The experts believe that the upcoming pandemic will be triggered by a currently unknown micro-organism emerging out of the blue, just like the Sars-CoV-2 virus (Covid-19).

Sars-CoV-2 is still considered a threat by some scientists as 15% of those surveyed in the study labeled it as the most likely to cause a pandemic soon. 

1% to 2% of the respondents labeled other deadly micro-organisms like Lassa, Nipah, Ebola, and Zika viruses as global threats. 

H5N1 virus

The World Health Organization warned last week about the alarming spread of the H5N1 strain of influenza that is causing millions of cases of avian flu across the globe.

This outbreak started in 2020 and has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry and has also wiped out millions of wild birds.

Chief scientist of the World Health Organization, Jeremy Farrar, said, "The mortality rate is extraordinarily high because humans have no natural immunity to the virus." It is noteworthy that to date there is no sign that H5N1 is spreading among humans, however, in hundreds of cases over the past 20 years where humans have been infected through contact with animals, the impact has been dire. 

The Royal Veterinary College's in Hatfield Daniel Goldhill informed the journal Nature last week that the more mammalian species the virus infects, the more chances it has to evolve into a strain that is dangerous to humans, as recently the virus has spread to mammal species including domestic cattle currently infected in 12 US states. 

Glasgow University's Ed Hutchinson labeled the infection in cattle as a surprise adding  "Pigs can get avian flu but until recently cattle did not. They were infected with their own strains of the disease. So the appearance of H5N1 in cows was a shock."

Even though many vaccines have been developed, Hutchinson added "If there was an avian flu pandemic it would still be a massive logistical challenge to produce vaccines at the scale and speed that will be needed. However, we would be much further down that road than we were with Covid-19 when a vaccine had to be developed from scratch."