Scientists have warned that the next pandemic, dubbed the “Great Pandemic,” is looming on the horizon, threatening to unleash the deadliest infectious disease in human history.
The paramyxovirus family includes more than 75 viruses, including mumps, measles, and respiratory infections, and has been added to the list of epidemic pathogens at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that must be monitored.
One of the viruses, the Nipah virus, can infect cells with receptors that regulate what enters or exits the cells that line the central nervous system and vital organs, and the death rate for this variant reaches 75 percent compared to the “Covid-19” virus, according to what was published by the “Daily Mail” newspaper and what was reported by Al Arabiya.net.”
Scientists point out that, unlike influenza and “Covid-19,” paramyxoviruses “change rapidly,” and do not appear to mutate as they spread, but they have become “very good at transmitting between humans.”
“Just imagine if a paramyxovirus emerged and was as contagious as measles and as deadly as Nipah,” Michael Norris, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said in a statement.
The first parasite discovered in this family, called “rinderpest,” was identified in 1902.
This was the second disease ever to be completely eradicated in 2011, after smallpox, which infected humans in 1980.
Although scientists have known about paramyxoviruses for more than a century, they do not yet understand how viruses jump to new species.
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