COVID and Emerging Infectious Diseases

Book excerpt: Over the last two years with the strain of coronavirus having a devastating effect on the world’s healthcare system and triggering a global "lockdown", one question that has emerged; What, or which infectious disease is going to hit us next? Many infectious diseases prevalent in humans and animals are caused by pathogens that once emerged from other animal hosts. In addition to these established or re-emerging infections, new infectious diseases periodically emerge. In extreme cases they may lead to pandemics as we currently are seeing. The increased urbanization and globalization of the world order with faster connectivity and traveling has further in-creased the risk factors for emerging infections. Despite this, enormous progress has been made in the field of infectious disease in the last few decades. The number of deaths and severe infections because of diseases like Malaria, HIV, Ebola, Dengue, Yellow fever virus (YFV), Zika etc. have been significantly reduced and diseases like Polio are on the brink of eradication. In particular, the emergence of the devastating SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has revolutionized the field in an unprecedented way. A myriad of vaccine platforms and highly potent therapeutic approaches have been developed by government, industry, academic, and non-governmental organizations. However, the rapid and unparalleled spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, and the amount of toll that it has caused to the public health and global economy also underscores the urgent need to develop broadly cross-reactive, rapidly deployable, and scalable therapeutic platforms. Development of these novel therapeutic modalities also requires a strong emphasis on the functional and mechanistic understanding of how molecular components in a biological process related to emerging infectious diseases work together. Onset of the out-breaks of recent decades including but not limited to SARS-CoV-1, MERS, Ebola virus, Zika virus, Nipah virus, Yellow fever virus, Lassa virus and the ongoing ever devastating SARS-CoV-2 pandemic also highlight the urgent need to devise a future proof pandemic preparedness strategy and the demand for a fast and early response.