The next pandemic, dubbed the ‘Big One,’ could be ‘simmering in the background,’ waiting to unleash the most contagious and deadliest diseases known to humanity.
The paramyxovirus family has over 75 viruses, including mumps, measles and respiratory tract infections, and was added to the list of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ pandemic pathogens to watch in October.
One of the viruses, the Nipah virus, can infect cells with receptors that regulate what gets in or out of cells that line the central nervous system and vital organs.
This variant has a fatality rate of up to 75 percent compared to Covid’s, which is well under one percent.
Scientists note that unlike the flu and Covid-19 are ‘speedy shape-shifters,’ paramyxoviruses appear not to mutate as they spread, but they have become ‘very good at transmission among humans.’