novel diseases seldom come from nowhere . alternatively , they cross over from animals to humans . regrettably , once they do , they sometimes literally “ go viral ” so quickly we sputter to catch up . A paper inScienceproposes we start ready our defenses against most virus mintage that might one 24-hour interval make the jump .

The report ’s authors need us to think much bigger , cataloging all the viruses we can find in animal , and assessing their capacity to infect humans . They call the idea the Global Virome Project , and reason that with the rate of beast viral diseases infecting human race increase in line with the expansion of human populations into new areas , the time to act is now .

At first coup d’oeil , the scale of what is required looks daunt , particularly when other intermediate - term peril pull so little funding . Reptile , fish , and even plant virus exist , but rarely threaten humans . Based on the pace of breakthrough , the authors count on around 1.67 million viral specie persist to be discovered in mammal and birds , along with the ones we already bang about .

fortuitously , not all of these are capable of infecting humans , but the paper approximate a still intimidate 631,000 - 827,000 are , give the right circumstances .

How much would it cost to tax all of the strange computer virus , and figure out out which pose peril ? The authors estimate the monetary value at $ 7 billion , ground on past attempts to try out for viruses . Even then a few would drop away through our nets – after all , we still   get wind newspecies of mammalsnow and then .

Getting this sort of money when America ’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the largest likely funder – is beingcut to the boneis almost certainly unrealistic . On the other hand , the authors indicate out that most of the cost lies in find the more obscure viruses , which are also , by virtue of their oddity , less threatening .

For $ 1.2 billion , spread over 10 twelvemonth , more than 70 percent of the unsung avian and mammalian viruses could be , in the authors ' words ; “ strike , characterize , and assessed for viral ecology . ” Considering the 2003 SARS outbreak was estimate to cost $ 10 - 30 billion ( and many lives ) , a price which might have been gash if we ’d know of the virus beforehand , this could be money very well spent .