Covid-like deadly pandemic could hit the world in next decade

There’s a 27.5% chance a pandemic as deadly as Covid-19 could take place in the next decade as viruses emerge more frequently, with rapid vaccine rollout the key to reducing fatalities, according to a predictive health analytics firm.

Climate change, growth in international travel, increasing populations and the threat posed by zoonotic diseases contribute to the risk, according to London-based Airfinity Ltd. But if effective vaccines are rolled out 100 days after the discovery of a new pathogen, the likelihood of a deadly pandemic drops to 8.1%, according to the firm’s modeling.

In a worst-case scenario, a bird flu type virus that mutates to allow human-to-human transmission could kill as many as 15,000 people in the UK in a single day, Airfinity said.

With the world now living with Covid-19, health experts are turning their attention to preparing for the next potential global threat. The past two decades have already seen three major coronaviruses that cause SARS, MERS and Covid-19 emerge, as well as the swine flu pandemic in 2009.