Unfortunately, the one serious attempt to change that pattern has been stalled. Last year, the WHO adopted a pandemic treaty, the first of its kind with obligations on spillover prevention. The day before the WHO learned of the hantavirus outbreak, however, negotiators failed to agree on how to equitably share critical pathogen samples, vaccines, and medicines between richer and poorer countries during future outbreaks. If we can’t agree on how to share life-saving inventions after the fact, the prospect of robust investments in prevention seems like an even longer shot.
This much we know: While we will never stop every spillover, a handful of commonsense measures can dramatically reduce the odds.
First, we have to halt deforestation. Last year, the world lost 4.3 million hectares of tropical forest larger than Switzerland. The World Wildlife Fund warns that we are tragically far off track from reaching the international goal of ending deforestation by 2030. Addressing deforestation is a question of political will. We have to make a tree in the Amazon or the Congo basin worth more alive than dead. Plus, beyond potentially preventing future outbreaks, protecting forests can simultaneously help address two other catastrophic societal threats: climate change and biodiversity loss.
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