Key points from article :
Zoonotic diseases (transmitted from animals to humans) could kill 12 times as many people in 2050 as they did in 2020.
Climate change and deforestation are increasing the frequency of spillovers.
Researchers analyzed historical trends in viral pathogens such as Ebola, Marburg, SARS Coronavirus 1, Nipah, and Machupo viruses.
Epidemics are found to be increasing by almost 5% per year since 1963, and deaths have increased by 9%.
If these trends continue, pathogens to cause 4-fold the number of spillovers and 12-fold the number of deaths in 2050 than in 2020.
These figures are likely to be an underestimate, as they do not include COVID-19 or other zoonotic diseases that do not meet the strict inclusion criteria for the study.
Recent epidemics sparked by zoonotic spillovers are not a coincidence, but rather a trend of increasing frequency and severity.
They call for urgent action to address this large and growing risk to global health.
Study by Amanda Meadows from Ginkgo Bioworks, published in the journal BMJ Global Health.
