Preventing pandemics costs far less than controlling them

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/942510

 

 News Release 4-Feb-2022
Tens of billions spent on habitat and surveillance would avoid trillions of annual costs
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Duke University

 

 We can pay now or pay far more later. That’s the takeaway of a new peer-reviewed study, published Feb. 4 in the journal Science Advances, that compares the costs of preventing a pandemic to those incurred trying to control one.   

“It turns out prevention really is the best medicine,” said Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke University, who was co-lead author of the study. “We estimate we could greatly reduce the likelihood of another pandemic by investing as little as 1/20th of the losses incurred so far from COVID into conservation measures designed to help stop the spread of these viruses from wildlife to humans in the first place.”

A smart place to start, the study shows, would be investing in programs to end tropical deforestation and international wildlife trafficking, stop the wild meat trade in China, and improve disease surveillance and control in wild and domestic animals worldwide.

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