Ignacio López-Goñi, Full Professor Microbiology: "The Global Health strategy is the only way to prepare ourselves for future threats."

"If we want to be prepared for future pandemics, the strategy is work between human health, animal health, and environmental health professionals, which is called One Health," concluded López-Goñi in his lecture took place at Civixox Iturrama and attracted a large issue .

In response to the question"Why do new viruses emerge?", the microbiologist showed that more than 60% of new emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases are of animal origin: zoonoses. The reason why new threats are constantly emerging (from HIV, influenza, coronaviruses, monkeypox, and now swine fever) is because we are increasingly living in an environment where contact the animal world is closer and more frequent. "There are more and more people on the planet, we live very close together and we move around a lot, and that is the best way for infectious diseases to spread." In addition, viruses have an enormous capacity for variability, recombination, and adaptation, so they evolve rapidly and can easily adapt to new hosts. In other cases, such as viruses transmitted by insects, such as West Nile virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, or dengue fever, which are already present in Europe, the reason is climate change: "Small changes in temperature and humidity cause the mosquitoes that carry these viruses to spread geographically to other places, which is why diseases that we might consider tropical are now present on our continent."

Regarding the origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, López-Goñi commented that although it is possible that the virus could have come from laboratory , there is no scientific data to confirm this. "Coronaviruses are animal viruses that have been jumping from one species to another for decades. Therefore, it is most likely that it originated in animals, as was the case with other known coronaviruses. Nature has sufficient resources to generate viruses such as SARS-CoV2 or even much worse ones. That is why it is so important to prepare for the next pandemic, even though we do not know who will cause it or when it will occur. But it will surely return, and the strategy is One Health."

López-Goñi recalled that, as part of the #LabMeCrazy! film festival program, the documentary Blame (in its original version with subtitles) will be screened at the Golem cinemas on Thursday, February 20, at 7:00 p.m. The film deals with the origin of COVID-19, not only from a scientific point of view but also from the perspective of public opinion, the media, and politics.

#LabMeCrazy! Science Film Festival is an competition science film competition organized by the University of Navarra Science Museum, in partnership the Caja Navarra Foundation, and with the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) / Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, the Government of Navarra, the SACYR Foundation, Laboral Kutxa, the Lilly Foundation, and Sanitas.