How We Can Spot the Next Covid-19 Variant Even Faster

We need a network of people and laboratories around the world doing more of what Dr. de Oliveira and his colleagues did late last year. They need to collect and scrutinize data from many sources, including wastewater and other environmental repositories, and dive deeper to understand how the virus is changing and quickly noting when a mutation has developed. Then they need to raise a signal for others to see and work quickly to get confirmation. Once they do, they need to share their determination widely, loudly, and swiftly. It is the only way to transition from the knee-jerk responses that have prevailed over the last two years to evidence-based public health measures and policy decisions that are more effective, timely, and collaborative.

Unfortunately, such a global network only exists in a rudimentary way right now—that’s one reason why, as fast as Dr. de Oliveira and his team worked, Omicron was already exploding undetected elsewhere. Fortunately, several global entities are being stood up to facilitate such information sharing. For our part, The Rockefeller Foundation has launched the Pandemic Prevention Institute (PPI), which will help create an early warning system to see the signal of an outbreak, speed the response, and stop the spread of the virus. Collaboration among the PPI and our partners like CERI is essential for the world to quickly identify and contain new variants.

There are many things that world leaders can do to facilitate a network, but I’d like to mention a couple here.

First, scientists must receive credit for their work. There is little incentive for them to participate and share the results of their research and analysis if it is not accredited to them. That’s one of the reasons that GISAID—an open-source database created by scientists, for scientists—has successfully enabled verifiable, transparent, and timely data sharing about SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens. The GISAID community of scientists has shared over six million genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2; thousands of sequences of the Omicron variant are being shared among scientists and governments around the world as I write this.

Second, countries should not be punished for sharing news about emerging variants or other pathogens of potential human consequence. Porous travel bans like the ones imposed on countries in southern Africa do little but penalize scientists and government officials who have acted in good faith by alerting the rest of the world about a potentially dangerous new pathogen. In addition to restricting personal or business travel, these bans also restrict the flow of reagents and supplies critical for tracking the spread of the virus and treating people in a potential hot zone. Instead of punishing nations for stepping forward, world leaders must laud them and provide critically needed resources to facilitate and accelerate the outbreak investigation and response.

To identify and contain new Covid-19 variants, we need a network of diverse partners—from the public and private sectors, academia and public health, animal and human health, and more—at all levels: global, regional, national, and local. By working together, we can share the work, divide the tasks, and focus limited resources where they might have the greatest impact, locally and globally. And if we do so with an approach rooted in trust, we will succeed. In fact, by working together, we can build a system that detects, mitigates, and contains outbreaks anywhere—before they become pandemics everywhere.

This article first appeared in TIME on January 13th, 2022, and is reposted with permission.