Here’s What’s Likely to Cause the Next Pandemic
At the start of the HBO series The Last of Us, a pair of scientists in a 1960s-era interview discuss the possibility of a pandemic caused by a fungus that will wipe out humanity. Not only does this set the tone for the show, but it also makes you wonder if something like this could actually happen. Answer: No. At least not now. However, this is possible in the future.
It got me thinking about what kind of infection is most likely to devastate humanity and ruin our way of life in the coming years. Contenders: bacteria, viruses and fungi. Each has an impressive historical kill count, as well as their own strengths and weaknesses. Here’s how they stack up.
The Case of the Fungal Pandemic
Fungal infections are mostly unpleasant. The most common examples in the US—ringworm, nail infections, yeast infections, and thrush—are easily treated with conventional medications and usually clear up within a few weeks. But some types of fungal infections are more serious. Diseases such as fungal meningitis and bloodstream infections, while not common, are potentially fatal, especially for immunocompromised people. And the emergence of new types of fungal infections is quite possible in the future.
How fungal infections spread
Minor fungal infections tend to spread from person to person through direct contact and contact with fungi in damp areas—which is why you get athlete’s foot in the gym—but fungus doesn’t spread in the same way that viral and bacterial infections do. Infected individuals do not exhale clouds of spores that others inhale to become clickers . While we breathe in loads of fungal spores all the time, for most of us, they are fairly harmless.
Instead of spreading from person to person, outbreaks of fungal diseases occur when people inhale a common source of fungal spores. For example, soil in the southwestern United States and parts of Mexico, Central and South America combines with the fungus that causes valley fever. Most people who inhale Valley Fever spores do not get sick, or if they do, it’s a cough that goes away after a few weeks. But for the elderly, infants, and other susceptible people, it can be a serious illness.
But all this can change at any moment. Most pathogenic fungi cannot cope with the heat inside our body and this keeps us safe, but some research suggests that these pathogens evolve as our planet warms up and our body heat may not be enough to fight them off forever. Luckily, fungal spores are much larger than viruses, so if everyone wore masks, this wouldn’t be a problem. I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem.
Bottom line: A fungal disease apocalypse is unlikely in the near future, but worth keeping an eye on.
The Case of the Bacterial Pandemic
Bacterial infections are the main outbreaks of deadly diseases worldwide. Cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, and a host of other catastrophic diseases are caused by bacteria, including the bubonic plague, which wiped out up to 200 million people in Europe, Africa, and Asia in the 1300s—perhaps the worst plague that ever existed in terms of view of the percentage of the population killed.
How bacterial infections spread
Bacteria can travel and they are everywhere . While the vast majority of bacteria just do their job and do no harm to us, deadly ones get to us through air, water, food, surface contact, animals, and perhaps our evil thoughts.
It is bad news. The good news is that most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was introduced in the 1920s and led to many other antibiotics that we use to treat bacterial diseases. Once serious health problems like syphilis have all but disappeared thanks to antibiotics. If you’re unlucky enough to catch the Black Death in 2023 (the U.S. averages seven cases per year), while you’re on antibiotics, you’ll probably recover and have a cool story to tell. Even with a deadly disease like anthrax, the survival rate with treatment is 55%. But, of course, this is not the end of the story.
Over time, antibiotics have become less effective. Bacteria have evolved to become resistant to known antibiotics, likely because they are overprescribed to humans and livestock, leading to the resurgence of certain diseases such as tuberculosis, as well as “superbugs” that appear to be immune to any antimicrobial agents. An estimated 35,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States, and this number is likely to increase over time.
Bottom line: Don’t discount the chances that antibiotic-resistant superbugs will wipe out humanity.
The Case of the Virus Pandemic
The consequences of a virus that causes a deadly disease that is spreading throughout humanity are constantly surrounding us, so I will not delve into this topic, except to point out why viruses are so insidious. Unlike bacteria or fungi, viruses are non-living, at least not in the sense that other organisms are. Since they are not among the living, it is more difficult for us to make them among the dead (at least technically). Antibiotics basically work by attacking the cell walls of bacteria, blocking protein production and stopping them from multiplying. Viruses take over our own cells to replicate, so we can’t target them the same way we target bacteria.
How viruses spread
Viruses spread much the same way bacteria do, and common viral infections even mimic the symptoms of bacterial infections (hence the overuse of antibiotics). Not only are they immune to antibiotics, viruses are 100 times smaller than bacteria, so they spread more easily and evolve faster.
Technically, they may not be alive, but viruses still undergo the evolutionary processes of natural selection and genetic mutation, and do so in new ways. That’s why the flu shot changes every year. Besides the usual types of mutations, they can do another funny thing: if two viruses infect the same cell, they are thought to be able to exchange genetic material and create a new virus.
However, there is also good news. The only human disease that we have completely eradicated from the face of the earth, smallpox, was caused by a virus, and other once terrible viral diseases – polio, measles, tetanus, etc. – are rare. The white knights in all these cases were the vaccines. We may have problems with direct attack by viruses, but vaccines can “teach” our immune system to do the job and thus prevent infection and spread in the first place, provided that enough people actually take the vaccines, but I’m sure that this won’t happen. problem.
So what will cause the next pandemic and kill us all?
Judging by the speed with which a COVID-19 vaccine is being developed and rolled out, I like to think that viral infections will be less of a problem in 100 years—if we get there. But in the near future, more and more viral pandemics around the world are almost inevitable, so if I had to bet my money on a disease that would kill us all, I would assume it would be caused by a virus.