Preventing the next pandemic: The EU project funding research into infectious diseases

For some, the COVID-19 pandemic might seem like a distant memory. But the virus still lives among us.

What will cause the next pandemic? And how can we be prepared to deal with it more effectively? A European project is dedicated to answering these very questions.

Two research institutes, in Munich and Augsburg in Germany, use cutting-edge technology to understand how viruses work as the risk of another pandemic remains very real.

"The next pandemic will come for sure. And it will most probably be another one that is transmitted by aerosols (fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air)," explained Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann, the director at the University of Augsburg's Institute of Environmental Medicine and director of the Institute of Environmental Medicine of the Helmholtz Centre in Munich.

"What we try now to set up is sentinels, also to understand how virus particles are dispersed in rooms, in aeroplanes, in buses. So, for the next pandemic, we don't want to shut down life. Life should go on," she added.

COVID-19 has caused more than 6.9 million deaths and infected more than 771 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation. 

The Institute of Environmental Medicine (IEM) at the Helmholtz Centre in Munich has acquired high-tech equipment thanks to the European PerForM-REACT project. Its main objective is the early detection of disease progression.

"There are certain groups of viruses such as coronaviruses or flaviviruses (transmitted by mosquitoes), which are on very strict surveillance, and we now have the tools and also the communication platforms to be better prepared and be aware of alarm bells which might ring," said Gregor Ebert, the group leader and head of BSL-3, Helmholtz Munich.

They have a