Next Pandemic could be Deadlier than Covid, Warns Vaccine Inventor, Sarah Gilbert

Another pandemic could be more contagious and more lethal than Covid, one of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine inventors, Dame Sarah Gilbert, has warned.

According to her, the advances made in research against fighting deadly viruses “must not be lost”, MailOnline has reported.

Delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby lecture, scheduled to be shown on the BBC tonight, she said, “This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods. 

“The next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.

“The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”

Gilbert is credited with saving millions of lives through her role in developing the vaccine.

Gilbert, a vaccinologist at the University of Oxford and whose team developed the Covid vaccine now used in 170 counties, added that we must take heed of the research and knowledge gained in tackling coronavirus.

She said, “We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness. 

“Just as we invest in armed forces and intelligence and diplomacy to defend against wars, we must invest in people, research, manufacturing and institutions to defend against pandemics.”

On the new Omicron variant, Gilbert said it contains mutations known to boost transmissibility of the virus.

And data suggests the strain, which is behind an explosion of cases in South Africa, could be better able to evade vaccines and the immune system. 

She added, though, that this “does not necessarily mean reduced protection against severe disease and death”.

Gilbert said: “Until we know more, we should be cautious, and take steps to slow down the spread of this new variant.”

Covid has killed 5.2million people around the world since the start of the pandemic in 2019, according to figures from John Hopkins University.

The virus was estimated kill one out of 100 people it infected.

However, the invention and rollout of vaccines has since reduced this to around one in 1,000, making it about as lethal as seasonal flu.  

Covid is far less deadly than Ebola which kills 40 per cent of those it infects. Ebola is much less contagious than Covid or flu however, being spread by direct contact with an infected person’s, or a deceased person’s, body fluids. 

In terms of pandemic history, Covid is still a minor player compared to some of the diseases which have spread around the globe.

Covid has killed an estimated 5.2million people globally since it emerged out of China in early 2019. This is roughly 0.7 per cent of the global population of 7.9billion.

In comparison the Spanish Flu killed an estimated 45million people between 1918 and 1920, about 2.5 per cent of global population the time.

Both Covid and the Spanish Flu pale when compared to the Black Death which killed about 200million people, just over half of the world’s population in the 1300s. It took 200 years for Europe’s population to return to pre-pandemic levels following this pandemic.  

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