As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, experts at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health have identified high-risk areas for future outbreaks through rigorous analysis published in One Health.
COVID-19 won't be humanity's last pandemic. In April 2020, a British professor warned it was "a dress rehearsal for the type of collapse that climate change risks causing," noting how climate disruptions and wildfires alter animal migration patterns, increasing human-virus contact in cooler regions.
A month later, an American author highlighted risks from intensive farming, citing H1N1 (swine flu) and H5N1 (bird flu) that emerged in industrial pig and chicken farms before jumping to humans. They urged shifts in lifestyle and consumption to mitigate threats.
With COVID-19's origins still under investigation, University of Sydney researchers mapped global hotspots in their October 8, 2020, One Health article, focusing on regions primed for the next pandemic.
The team evaluated areas with intense human-animal interactions, exacerbated by deforestation—which displaces wildlife and heightens contact—plus population density and mobility. Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South and Southeast Asia emerged as high-risk due to strained healthcare systems that could delay detection.
Two megacities stood out: Mumbai, India, and Chengdu, China—major transport hubs with massive populations.
The researchers caution that without proactive measures, hundreds of thousands of viruses from mammals and birds could spill over to humans soon, potentially sparking new infectious diseases every eight months.
