Durban — The Covid-19 disease is no longer a threat but the world should keep a close eye on the outbreak of the H5N1 virus in the US to prevent another pandemic, eminent scientist Professor Tulio de Oliveira has cautioned.
The South African scientist – who played a key role in detecting and identifying various strains of the coronavirus – said that with the current levels of population immunity, South Africans need not worry that Covid would again be as big a problem as it had been.
However, given that this was the age of epidemics and pandemics, new pathogens would emerge, such as the influenza virus that was transmitting at high levels in mammals and other animals in the US.
De Oliveira said: “At the moment, the strain of avian flu, even the one transmitted in cows, is still many evolutionary steps from becoming a strain that can cause a pandemic. However, it would be important to control that now, because one thing that we learned from viruses and pathogens is that if they keep transmitting for a long time, there is always the chance that they can evolve further. At the moment, we don’t see this happening instantly, but it would be good to take that seriously and try to control avian flu in animals, especially mammals, as soon as possible.”
To date, the H5N1 avian flu has caused outbreaks in the US, affecting at least 90 million poultry, and has spread to dairy cows. One human case of avian flu has also been detected in a dairy worker.
This week, De Oliveira, a world-renowned scientist in the field of genomics, was honoured by TIME magazine in its inaugural 2024 TIME100 Health list, a new annual compilation that celebrates 100 individuals who have had the most impact on global health this year.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, De Oliveira led the team that discovered the Sars-CoV-2 Beta variant. A year later, De Oliveira led a groundbreaking multidisciplinary team of researchers and scientists in the discovery of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, which swiftly emerged as the dominant global variant of the virus.
De Oliveira said the global acknowledgement was not just for work done in the past, but for the ongoing capacity building on the continent to ensure that there were enough high-calibre scientists in Africa that could respond to epidemics as they happened.
“So, for example, in the last three years during Covid and the two years that passed Covid, we have funded 510 fellows from 48 African countries to spend weeks, months or years with us in South Africa.”
Once the Covid-19 threat receded, De Oliveira and his team turned their attention to setting up large and efficient genomic surveillance systems for new diseases, such as the ones amplified by climate change, including dengue, chikungunya, the Zika virus, influenza and cholera. Last year, he established the Climate Amplified Diseases and Epidemics consortium, a global consortium of at least 30 countries looking at the interaction between climate change and infectious disease.
“For us, it is very important that these new outbreaks are detected and controlled quickly … so outbreaks don’t become epidemics. And if it becomes an epidemic, that it can be controlled, such as what’s happened to our epidemic in cows of H5N1.”
De Oliveira said it was important that the US control that epidemic to prevent it from becoming a pandemic.
He said their team had already responded to multiple climate change-related outbreaks, such as cholera in Malawi, as well as in Mozambique and Cameroon, which occurred after floods and extreme climate events. There had also been huge outbreaks of dengue in Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Ethiopia, which was again associated with increases in temperatures and vectors such as mosquitoes that spread disease.
“Our climate team has even responded to the large outbreak of dengue in Italy last year, and we continue tracking multiple pathogens.
“What we are doing is to use a lot of the resources to then track and quickly control a lot of other outbreaks, which unfortunately (because of) climate change is amplified. It is estimated that it’s amplified 60% of non-pathogens, and with extreme climate events we may have the rise of other ones.”
De Oliveira is the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and deputy director of the Genomic Surveillance Unit at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK.
UKZN’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and head of the College of Health Sciences, Professor Busisiwe Ncama, said that De Oliveira’s recognition in the TIME100 Health list was testament to his unwavering dedication to global health and his unparalleled contributions to the field of genomics.
“Through his leadership and innovation, Professor de Oliveira continues to inspire and drive progress in the fight against health crises, exemplifying the transformative power of scientific collaboration and dedication,” she said.
Professor Sibusiso Moyo, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at Stellenbosch University, said: “Prof Tulio de Oliveira’s tireless dedication to advancing scientific knowledge and his exceptional leadership in the field of genomics and bioinformatics exemplify the spirit of innovation and collaboration that defines our institution.”
Sunday Tribune