Tracking pandemics: Detecting new diseases early |

Corona, AIDS and the Spanish flu have claimed many millions of lives. Now, researchers around the world are trying to better predict and prevent pandemics like these in the future.

A vet visits Klaus Hoffmann’s chicken coop with an assistant and a portable laboratory. The goal of the project is to detect ‘zoonoses’, infections that pass from animals to humans, at an early stage. These 40 chickens are Hoffmann’s great hobby. Today, they are being thoroughly checked for age, size, weight and viral load. The results of the chicken examination are later compared with health data from Hoffmann himself — and compared to data from Hoffmann’s dog, as well. The aim is to detect viruses, bacteria or parasites that could migrate from animal to human.

The coronavirus pandemic is highly likely to have been caused by such a zoonosis. Fabian Leendertz is researching this theory at the University of Greifswald. He specializes in a new field of research called “One Health”. This research field looks at how humans, animals and the environment interact in the spread of new viruses. Leendertz, who has worked on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) to trace the origin of the coronavirus, wants to stay two steps ahead of the next wave of infection. That means identifying viruses before they can become dangerous for us.

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