Nelson Vergel
Founder, ExcelMale.com
The now prophetic words could be found buried at the end of a research paper published in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews in October of 2007: "The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic animals in southern China, is a time bomb."
The warning — made nearly 13 years ago and more than four years after a worrying first wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed nearly 800 people globally — was among the earliest to predict the emergence of something like SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the current pandemic of Covid-19.
Many other warnings would follow.
"We were out there on the ground after SARS working on coronaviruses with Chinese colleagues in collaboration," said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based non-profit group that took part in a larger, federally-funded effort, called Predict, to hunt for new pandemic viruses in wildlife in 31 countries, including China. That effort was famously defunded last fall, just before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began.
"But we were the only group of western scientists," Daszak added. "How can we be the only people looking for these viruses when there was such a clear and present danger?"
The warning — made nearly 13 years ago and more than four years after a worrying first wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed nearly 800 people globally — was among the earliest to predict the emergence of something like SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the current pandemic of Covid-19.
Many other warnings would follow.
"We were out there on the ground after SARS working on coronaviruses with Chinese colleagues in collaboration," said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based non-profit group that took part in a larger, federally-funded effort, called Predict, to hunt for new pandemic viruses in wildlife in 31 countries, including China. That effort was famously defunded last fall, just before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began.
"But we were the only group of western scientists," Daszak added. "How can we be the only people looking for these viruses when there was such a clear and present danger?"
For Experts Who Study Coronaviruses, a Grim Vindication
They warned that the next great pandemic would be a coronavirus, but research funding went to studying other threats.
www.medscape.com
