PAN_5.4_b_48

Valuing Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ engagement and knowledge in pandemic prevention programmes.
Undiscovered microbial diversity in wildlife that has potential to emerge in future, or to be used to develop therapeutics or vaccines.
EID hotspots are primarily in countries with relatively high biodiversity, often in remote regions that may also be managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. The development of successful strategies and policies may therefore benefit from collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to bridge the knowledge gap across cultures. There is an extensive accumulated knowledge in these communities that can play a much bigger role in the future prevention and prediction of pandemics. Collaborating with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in the development of strategies and policies in the respect of equitable “access and benefit sharing” (ABS) or other instruments as the Consultation Protocols established by the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, would enhance their success. Linking the different levels of management (from international organizations to national governments, local authorities, NGOs, research institutions, citizen scientists, local communities etc.) is also considered crucial. Developing effective pandemic prevention programs in these regions will be enhanced by efforts to enhance secure land tenure and ownership rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
Pandemics emerge due to the spillover of diverse microbes in wildlife reservoirs, driven by anthropogenic change. Estimates of microbial diversity suggest less than 0.1% of microbes available for future emergence have been discovered to date. Discovery of the background microbial diversity in wildlife is urgently needed, particularly for viruses and antimicrobial resistant microbes. National agencies from EID hotspot countries could work with donor countries to fund programs that aim to identify, triage, characterize, and monitor the high-risk microbes in wildlife that have high potential to act as zoonotic reservoirs. A series of programs to identify country-level viral diversity in wildlife (“National Virome Projects”) could be coordinated to assess the global potential for future disease emergence, and target funds to the regions, communities and pathogens of highest risk. These programs would need to be matched with research projects that assess the risk of emergence for newly discovered viruses, as was done for SARS-related coronaviruses prior to COVID-19. While much of the work on microbial diversity has focused on their risk for disease, there have been repeated calls for conservation programs that include microbial biodiversity in their goals. Microbial diversity surveys could enhance their effectiveness by assessing which microbes should be prioritized for conservation.
Mapping within-country EID hotspots: The risk of disease emergence has been mapped at a global scale, but within-country production of risk maps are hindered by unequal surveillance and reporting, and are currently lacking. Accurate, high-resolution mapping of risk would allow resource allocation to the regions and communities most likely to be at the frontline of a novel emerging disease. Efforts to quantify fine scale hotspots of disease emergence could be supported by donor countries, the WHO and others, to identify regions for enhanced surveillance.