Next virus will be influenza-based not CoV, says noted virologist

VELLORE: The next pandemic would be caused by an influenza-based virus and not by any known virus, opined Dr Jacob John, eminent virologist and former head of virology department at CMC Hospital, Vellore.

Rejecting the comments by professor Susan Weiss of the University of Pennsylvania, US, who said at a COVID-19 seminar in New Delhi on Friday that the next pandemic outbreak could be caused by the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, he said: “The moment the MERS virus appears, it will be nipped in the bud as health officials across the world are aware of it and know how to control it. A pandemic can only be caused by a virus which is not known to the world till date,” he said.

Even MERS, which started in the Middle East, claimed lives only when it reached South Korea. But after health experts identified it, they managed to stop it immediately, he pointed out. “That is why I can emphatically state that the next pandemic will be caused by an influenza-based virus. From 1918 through 1957, 1968 and 2009, the world faced outbreaks, all of which were caused by new viruses that were influenza-based,” Dr John added.

For a virus to create a pandemic, it has to have intense affinity for human to human transmission which coronavirus has, he said. MERS could create a pandemic only if it changed itself. But there was no evidence of any such evolution by that virus at of now, the virologist added.

Only ‘candidate vaccines’ were available for MERS virus, as the lack of demand resulted in it not being produced commercially. The “one size fits all” approach cannot be applied to vaccines, which are specific to each virus, he said, adding that exceptions to this were the small pox and BCG vaccines.