More novel forms of influenzas are emerging. If a new kind of avian influenza were to emerge and spread as effectively as existing influenza viruses do already, we will see a huge increase in sickness, hospitalizations and death. Most virologists expect it will be a new kind of avian influenza. That's the million-dollar question and we don't know the answer. In a recent survey of epidemiologists, 90 per cent of them said a pandemic would leave one billion people sick kill 165 million and cost the world economy $3-trillion (U.S.) over the next two generations. The origins of epidemics is both fascinating and grim, but Shah says there are steps we can take to protect future generations from the next epidemic. It has since spread to more than 30 countries, mostly in the Americas. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Shah discusses what new pathogens stalk humankind today, from Ebola, avian influenza, and now the mosquito-carried Zika virus, which emerged in Brazil and is associated with alarming defects in the fetuses of pregnant women. Her previous book, The Fever, was touted by The New York Times as a 'tour-de-force history of malaria.' Her new book, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, provides engrossing insight into the hot spots where viruses thrive, how they mutate, and ultimately travel around the globe, potentially infecting population centres around the world. Science journalist and author Sonia Shah has spent her career studying history's most disruptive diseases and contagions, trying to figure out how some of the most deadly turned into full-blown pandemics that have wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives.

Pandemic by Sonia Shah