DAILY STAR
Top boffins have announced that the world should be worrying about 70 different viruses as the possible causes of the next pandemic.
The heart-warming comments have come from experts at the University of Edinburgh, who studied a whopping 743 different virus families to figure out which ones we need to focus on.
And they also found that the viruses they are now warning about – ranging from the common cold to measles, to good old Coronavirus – most viruses that spread through the human population have evolved separately from animal viruses.
They also declared that their findings could help to figure out exactly what the infamous Disease X, which the World Health Organisation warns about on a regular basis, actually is.
Chair of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Mark Woolhouse explained that viruses without the “right ancestry don’t seem to cause epidemics”.
And added: “Out of potentially huge numbers of mammal and bird viruses in circulation, we should concentrate on the ones that are related to existing human viruses with epidemic potential. This research narrows the search for the next Disease X enormously.”
