Name: Insights: How Global Pandemics Occur & Spread
Uploaded: 2020-03-16
Duration: 2 min 50 s
Description: The global health community should be doing more to prevent, rather than react, to the next pandemic.

[MUSIC PLAYING] BRYAN WALSH: We had Zika. Before that, we had H1N1. Before that, we had obviously Ebola, SARS, you can keep going back. Why does this keep happening to us? Is there something-- why are we so vulnerable, and why do we seem helpless to stop these pandemics from happening? MICHAEL T OSTERHOLM: Well, first of all, since we've lived in the caves, we've been vulnerable to infectious diseases. Don't forget that in 1900, average life expectancy in this country was 48 years. Today, it's 78 years. For every three days we've lived, we've gained a day in life expectancy. It's largely because we were able to eliminate infectious diseases, particularly in childhood, through the use of sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics. What's happened, though, since the revolution where we've had such major changes, the world has changed. Today, with 7.8 billion-- approaching 7.8 billion people on the face of the earth, one of every people who's ever lived is on the face of the earth right now, and the fastest growing regions of the world are actually in the developing world, where in some of the larger metropolitan areas of 14 or more million, half the people live in the most desperate of all slums you can imagine. Now overlay that with the fact that global trade and travel is so common today that it's not just we move people, we move mosquitoes, we move all kinds of things around the world. We've eliminated mountain ranges, oceans, and political boundaries as a means to keep things isolated, so we really have a new boiling pot. The final piece of that, though, is the fact that if you look at the potential for pandemics-- and we'll talk about that here-- is we really need to talk about a fast-moving pandemic and a slow-moving pandemic. Fast moving would be, for example, influenza, but we also have a very desperate need right now to understand that antibiotic resistance is a slow-moving pandemic that over the next 20 years could fundamentally rewrite the way all of us in the modern world live with regard to infectious diseases. Take Ebola, and I think Monsef really raises a very important point. Right now, when we look at what happened with Ebola in 2014, this was basically a disease of rural jungles, villages of Africa, where it had very little impact, even if it spread through the entire village, because there were several hundred people. What happened to Africa? Africa's been urbanized. Today, the fastest growing cities in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. There were more people living in the slums of Kinshasa right now than lived in all three of the capital cities where the outbreak occurred. All it would take is one Ebola match in Kinshasa right now and we would be so screwed. And yet, as he said, the vaccine has almost fallen completely right now on deaf political, economic ears, and we have to change that. We just go from crisis to crisis. We can anticipate these, we should anticipate these. We could have anticipated Zika in a much better way, and we're not, and that's what we have to change, because otherwise, we will see some potentially very major global issues over the next decade. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Insights: How Global Pandemics Occur & Spread

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The global health community should be doing more to prevent.

How Global Pandemics Occur & Spread

The global health community should be doing more to prevent, rather than react, to the next pandemic.

way had VICA for that. We had a tch one n one for that. We have the Ebola stars. Keep going back. Why does this keep happening to us? There's something. Why are we so vulnerable and why do we seem? Help us to stop these from the pandemic from happening? Well, first loss since we've lived in the caves have been vulnerable to infectious diseases. Don't forget that in 1900 average life expectancy in this country was 48 years. Today it's 78 years every three days. We've lived with game today, and life expectancy was largely because we were able to eliminate infectious disease, particularly childhood, through the use of sanitation, vaccines and antibiotics. What happened, though, since the revolution where we've had such major changes, the world has changed today, with 7.8 billion approaching 7.8 billion people in the face of the earth. One of every people who ever lived is on the face of the earth right now, and the fastest growing regions of the world are actually in the developing world, where in some of the larger metropolitan areas of 14 or more 1,000,000 half people live in the most desperate of all slums. You could imagine overlay that with the fact that global trade and travel is so common today that it's not just we move people. We move mosquitoes. We move all kinds of things around the world. We've eliminated mountain ranges, oceans and political boundaries of means to keep things isolated, so we really have a new boiling pot. The final piece of that, though, is the fact that if you look at the potential for pandemics and we'll talk about that here, you really need to talk about a fast moving pandemic and a slow moving pandemic. Fast moving would be, for example, influenza. But we also have a very desperate need right now to understand that antibiotic resistance is a small moving pandemic that over the next 20 years, but fundamentally rewrite the way all of us in the modern world live with regard to infectious diseases. Take you bowling. I think mon cel really raises a very important point right now. When we looked at what happened the bowl in 2014 this was basically a disease of rural jungles, villages of Africa, where it had very little impact even if it spreads to the entire village of several 100 people. What happened after Africa has been your urbanized today, the fastest growing cities in the world are in sub Saharan Africa. There were more people living in the slums of Kinshasa right now, then lived in all three of the capital cities where the outbreak occurred. All it would take is one Ebola match in Kinshasa. Right now we would be so screwed and yet is, he said. The vaccine has almost fallen completely right now on death, political, economic years. And we have to change that. We just go from crisis to crisis. We can anticipate these. We should anticipate these. We could have anticipated Zika in a much better way and we're not. And that's what we have to change because otherwise we will see some potentially very major global issues over the next decade.