Q&A: Why saving animals and nature is vital to stopping pandemics

Even though there still hasn’t been a definitive answer, scientists have pointed toward animals being the likely source of COVID-19. A theory that it could have been incubated by bats has become more prominent since the initial outbreak. It wouldn't be a surprising result since scientists estimate that 3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals. In order to be effective at pandemic prevention, it is therefore essential to identify and reduce the ways that pathogens most commonly end up spilling over into humans from wildlife. That’s the argument of the Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition, a group of conservation and health organizations that have put forward the case that destroying nature is endangering humans. A recent report published by members of the coalition and people collaborating with it, argues that measures including halting the clearing and degradation of tropical and subtropical forests, investing in the health of communities living in emerging infectious disease hotspots, and shutting down or strictly regulating commercial wildlife markets and trade would help stop future diseases from emerging. Neil Vora, a physician and pandemic prevention fellow at Conservation International and a member of the coalition, told Devex that while investing in the surveillance of potential zoonotic diseases is an absolutely critical step, “alone it is not enough,” adding that organizations and governments need to be thinking about the “upstream drivers” of pandemics. Vora, who previously worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and also developed and led New York City’s COVID-19 contact tracing program from 2020 to 2021, sat down with Devex to explain more about the vital link between nature conservation and human health. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Can you tell me about your role and your interest in finding long-term solutions to preventing pandemics? I moved to Conservation International from CDC, but I’m still using the skills I developed there and from my clinical training because it is all related. If we’re not taking care of nature, we are going to have adverse human health impacts. While outbreaks are inevitable — we're always going to have outbreaks of emerging infections — what is not evitable is the current frequency of them. We [the Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition] are suggesting solutions that can have an impact. “Pandemics are an all-of-society problem, so we need an all-of-society approach to addressing them.” --— Dr. Neil Vora, pandemic prevention fellow, Conservation International The return on investment is huge. When we invest in upstream interventions for around $10 billion a year that is such a small amount compared to dealing with a pandemic like COVID-19, which cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars. How are we creating the conditions for more pandemics in our world today? We know that most emerging infectious diseases are on the rise globally and have been since at least the 1940s. This is because of human activities that increasingly place us and domestic animals in close proximity to wildlife. Most emerging infectious diseases originate in wildlife and then the pathogens jump into people. Of all human activities, it is land use change — particularly in the form of deforestation — that is perhaps the greatest driver of infectious disease emergence. So if we want to prevent infectious diseases, that is our answer right there. [It’s] thinking about how we are managing land, how we are treating wildlife, and how we are investing in the health of communities in emerging infectious disease hotspots. These are ways that we can prevent [diseases], and they're often cut out of the conversation in public health circles. How exactly does deforestation lead to zoonotic pathogen spillover? There’s a variety of different ways. [Firstly,] deforestation creates forest edges where the forest suddenly stops, increasing opportunities for people and domestic animals to interact with wildlife. Secondly, similarly to how humans get sick when they are stressed, the same goes for wildlife — when their habitat is destroyed, they get stressed and are more likely to get sick and shed pathogens. A loss of biodiversity means that animals that can only survive in the forest die out. … But others like bats and rodents can keep living alongside people. And these are the same animals that often carry pathogens. Finally, deforestation is a driver of climate change, and climate change is pushing animals that are reservoirs of viruses closer to people, as these animals search for conditions that are more suitable for their survival. Why do ideas like curbing deforestation get left out of public health conversations? Public health practitioners and medical doctors are not trained in these other subject areas [like ecology]. … So we need to be bringing together teams. Pandemics are an all-of-society problem, so we need an all-of-society approach to addressing them. Another issue is that funding cycles are often tagged to political life cycles, particularly here in the U.S. Funding cycles are for two years, maybe three or five if you're lucky — it means you can't plan for the long-term. We're constantly reacting rather than being proactive and strategic. It’s a lot easier to measure the effectiveness of the work done when you're responding to outbreaks — you can talk about the number of vaccines delivered, for example. But when you prevent something … you're trying to prove something that didn't happen and that can be hard to quantify. In our society that is very focused on measuring outcomes, for good reason, that leads to challenges in making the case for prevention. What should be the response to these issues from policymakers and health agencies? In the public health space, I’d like to see us talk more about prevention. We often focus on preparedness, which is absolutely important, but we have to invest in both. Prevention is so important from an equity perspective. We’ve seen with COVID-19, monkeypox, and many other outbreaks, that the tools of pandemic preparedness and response are inequitably distributed. Whereas prevention benefits everyone, particularly people in the most resource-limited settings of the world who often are the last to receive vaccines and therapeutics. We have several policy opportunities right now that could be transformational. With the World Health Assembly’s ongoing negotiation for a pandemic agreement, maybe at the level of a treaty, that’s a great opportunity. … We need this pandemic accord to have a very clear mandate for pandemic prevention. [Without it] it will ultimately fail to deliver on its intended objectives. Next is the World Bank Pandemic Fund. First, countries need to be investing more in this, as it has not met the $10 billion minimum that it is looking for. Secondly, in addition to many of the important activities that this fund will be supporting, what we've not seen as much discussion about is investing in upstream prevention. Finally, we have to stop thinking of conservation and public health as two different sectors. I've talked to foundations and donors before, they say: “We’re focused on health, not conservation, [or vice versa].” And that is a problem because conservation is public health; we need nature to survive. Visit the Planet Health series for more in-depth reporting on the current impact of the climate crisis on human health around the world. Join the conversation by using the hashtag #PlanetHealth.