The frequent emergence of killer zoonotic viruses that were not known to infect humans earlier has been so prominent over the last two decades that underestimating their potential to evolve and kill us, as it did in the case of the recent pandemic, is suicidal. The loss of over 25 lakh human lives from this otherwise evitable pandemic has shattered our complacent belief that ‘humans are invincible’.

Admittedly, addressing sickness from viral infections has always been a challenge. The frustration is subtly reflected in the enduring clinical advice — with medicines a virus can get you sick for a week and without medicines for as long as seven days. Thus, prevention has always been the preferable option rather than exploring possible cures for viral diseases. This holds true even today. It is well understood among those in charge of disease control that a combat approach of ‘will see when it comes’ is unlikely to work for a virus of this nature and the only way to avert it is to prevent it. Not surprisingly, the desperate experiments with multiple existing drugs in the guise of ‘repurposing’ them when we had, in fact, no clue on how to kill this virus had miserably failed to curtail the loss of human lives. Shamefully, it also exposed our lack of preparedness and competence to contain an expected viral invasion although billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money are spent every year on research related to disease surveillance, prevention, and control. Surely resources were not lacking in our failure to stop this virus. Then what was it?

There is perhaps little doubt today that the SARS-CoV-2 originated in China and spread to even the most remote places through physical transmission from infected human travellers. It is difficult to believe that the ‘fertile human brains’ that prescribed the use of thermal guns as the sacrosanct method for screening passengers at airports and seaports failed to realize that this would not be an effective way to stop the spread of the virus. It was already known as early as February 2020 that most of the infected who could potentially spread the virus were asymptomatic. The blind dependence on thermal guns and their obvious failure to screen the infected at the port of entry was the primary cause of the global spread of the virus. Why is this device then still being used?

One is also forced to wonder why there was such a delay in developing vaccines against these emerging killer viruses. The SARS virus, the evolutionary predecessor of SARS-CoV-2, had warned us with its deadly appearance in China in 2002. Exactly 10 years later came an even more deadly virus of the same genre — MERS in the Middle East. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in China was perhaps not surprising, notwithstanding the digressing conspiracy theories about its origin. In saying so, one cannot absolve China from the crime of suppressing necessary facts about this deadly virus for over two months, contributing to its spread.

Nevertheless, there has been no serious effort to develop vaccines against any of these zoonotic viruses notwithstanding their life-threatening potential. Is it because the panic index was not high enough for the pharmaceutical companies to make enough money out of such a venture? Indeed, none of the previous coronaviruses was as contagious as the present one and no virus in history has created such a large customer base for vaccines. If there was a vaccine ready even against the almost 20-year-old SARS virus, this pandemic could have been prevented to a great extent.

The role played by public health organizations and the government is critical when it comes to protecting public health. But the political will to save human life using public money seems to be losing priority. This is due to the growth of an extremely powerful and rich lobby that is supported by the pharma and healthcare industries. Today, healthcare has become a lucrative business backed by influential catalysts that help in creating and promoting human health crises for money. This pandemic has revealed shocking instances of ‘conflict of interest’ in the conduct of organizations deployed for safeguarding public interest. It is important that amidst scientific efforts to prevent the re-emergence of such a pandemic, we also resolve to restrict the forces that continue to pitch human life as a commodity for business. If that is not done, the day is not far when such pandemics would be artificially created.