How to Prevent The Next Pandemic: Nature-Based Solutions And Policy Opportunities

Moderated by award-winning science writer, David Quammen, opening statement by Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove (WHO), and hosted by Dr. Raina Plowright (Cornell), this panel-style webinar offers a summary of the key strategies for pandemic prevention, presented by ten global and cross-disciplinary experts on the fundamental drivers of pandemics, the strategies we can take to prevent them, and the current policy opportunities for primary pandemic prevention.

Reducing the risk of future pandemics requires investment in prevention, preparedness, and response. However, primary pandemic prevention (preventing zoonotic spillover) has been largely absent in global conversations, policy guidance, and practice in part because there is a lack of a clear definition of prevention and lack of clear guidance on how to do this. Ecological countermeasures—actions that protect and restore wildlife habitat or mitigate wildlife-human interactions—provide many benefits including preventing pandemics at the source. Such action is critical, and we believe, our best path forward, because as the effects of anthropogenic change increase, the risk of pandemics will, too.