Want to worry about the next pandemic? Spillover.global has you covered
Enlarge / Researchers with Franceville interdisciplinary Medical Research Centre (CIRMF, Centre Interdisciplinaire Medical de Recherches de Franceville) collect samples from a bat on November 25, 2020 inside a cave in the Zadie region in Gabon.
We didn't know about the SARS-CoV-2 virus until it showed up in humans. But previous experience with other coronaviruses that jumped into humans (SARS and MERS) told us that something like COVID-19 could pose a risk. Coronaviruses are prevalent in a number of species that have frequent contact with humans, and they have a clear history of being able to adapt themselves to human cells.
Being aware of viruses that have similar properties can help us recognize threats for future pandemics. Now, researchers are taking the results of a massive virus survey and releasing a public database of hundreds of viruses, all rated for how much risk the viruses pose to humans. And any viruses that we discover can be plugged into the framework the researchers have developed so that we can get quick information on whether they're threatening.
What’s out there?
The effort grew out of a USAID-sponsored program called PREDICT, which was part of a set of efforts focused on zoonotic diseases, those that can cross species barriers and infect humans. Collectively, the PREDICT project did a massive survey of animal viruses, using over a half-million individual samples taken from 75,000 animals. Out of that data, the project identified over 700 new viruses, including one that had never been seen in the animal in which it was found.