Pandemics Are Preventable

At EcoHealth Alliance, we believe that global problems require global solutions. That the health of all things — people, animals, the environment — are related. That pandemics can be stopped at the source.

Zoonotic disease is a fact of life. Animals and humans have passed viruses back and forth for many thousands of years. But through science we can limit the impact of this reality. In the past one hundred years alone, scientists have developed the first vaccines, mapped the human genome, and discovered thousands of previously unknown viruses. Science is progress. Science saves.

That is what we are at EcoHealth Alliance: scientists. Our strength is in our diversity of backgrounds, experience, and disciplines.

Collaboration is central to our mission and it is through working together that we become smarter, more efficient, and more effective.

Our work takes us to many parts of the world and takes many shapes. We analyze data to develop predictive models that can show where new and emerging diseases are most likely to appear. We work in the field to identify previously unknown pathogens so that these may be studied and understood before they start to make people sick. We work in communities to better understand the real-world risks people face, be it through contact with wild animals or as a result of rapidly changing environments, due either to deforestation or similar land-use change. And we work on a policy level, helping to make sure that fish and wildlife ministries are sharing information with health systems who are sharing information with environmental protection agencies.

There are, at present, 1.67 million undiscovered viruses around the globe. Some of these present little to no risk to us. Others do. Just about two years ago, the virus that causes COVID-19 was one.

Outbreaks are perhaps inevitable, but pandemics are not. We can – and should – get out ahead of them, by studying the viruses themselves, but also by better understanding the mechanics of disease emergence. EcoHealth Alliance has led that charge for years and our commitment to our mission remains unwavering. Bat viruses we found in the wild have been used to test the efficacy of several COVID-19 treatments; we publish all our work so that it can be built upon.

Your support for EcoHealth Alliance is invaluable. The world is not nearly back to normal but it is through the power of science that we’ve gotten this far. COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses: in our global readiness to fight new and emerging diseases and in the body of research we have to help us stop outbreaks in their tracks. Let us not get caught unprepared again; please support our scientists today.