In case you missed our recent webinar from Prof Gerry Killeen, (the new AXA Research Chair in Applied Pathogen Ecology at the Environmental Research Institute and School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UCC) you can watch the recording right here, and download the accompanying slides here.

In this webinar, Prof Killeen outlined important lessons that can be learned from the natural histories of malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and common arboviruses, to inform ongoing containment of COVID-19 today and help prevent further pandemics in future. Taking COVID-19 as the current manifestation of what WHO refers to as Disease X, Prof Killeen then outlined how we need to respond to decisively Crush the Curve of this pandemic through the kind of genuine national unity and global solidarity emphasized by Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization. He then described the strategic environmental, ecological and human development issues which underpin accelerated emergence of novel emerging pathogens like COVID-19, and which demand far greater international cooperation to protect us against Disease Y and Disease Z in the future.