The story that I'm going to tell you today, for me, began back in 2006. That was when I first heard about an outbreak of mysterious illness that was happening in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. The people that were getting sick from this illness, they had horrifying symptoms, nightmarish. They had unbelievable headaches, they couldn't eat or drink. Some of them were even hallucinating -- confused and aggressive. The most tragic part of all was that many of the victims were children. And of all of those that got sick, none survived. It turned out that what was killing people was a virus, but it wasn't Ebola, it wasn't Zika, it wasn't even some new virus never before seen by science. These people were dying of an ancient killer, one that we've known about for centuries. They were dying of rabies. And what all of them had in common was that as they slept, they'd all been bitten by the only mammal that lives exclusively on a diet of blood: the vampire bat.
A historia que vou contar hoxe, para min, comezou no 2006. Foi a primeira vez que oín falar sobre o brote dunha enfermidade misteriosa que se estaba producindo na selva amazónica do Perú. As persoas que estaban enfermando tiñan síntomas horribles, de pesadelo. Tiñan dores de cabeza incribles e non podían comer nin beber. Algunhas incluso tiñan alucinacións, confusas e agresivas. O máis tráxico de todo era que moitas das vítimas eran nenos. E de todas as que enfermaron, ningunha sobreviviu. Resultou que o que estaba matando esa xente era un virus, pero non era o ébola, non era o virus do Zika, nin sequera era un novo virus que a ciencia nunca vira. Estas persoas morrían por culpa dun vello asasino, un que coñecemos desde hai séculos. Estaban morrendo pola rabia. E o que todas tiñan en común era que mentres durmían, todas foran mordidas polo único mamífero que se mantén exclusivamente de sangue: o morcego vampiro.
These sorts of outbreaks that jump from bats into people, they've become more and more common in the last couple of decades. In 2003, it was SARS. It showed up in Chinese animal markets and spread globally. That virus, like the one from Peru, was eventually traced back to bats, which have probably harbored it, undetected, for centuries. Then, 10 years later, we see Ebola showing up in West Africa, and that surprised just about everybody because, according to the science at the time, Ebola wasn't really supposed to be in West Africa. That ended up causing the largest and most widespread Ebola outbreak in history.
Este tipo de brotes que saltan dos morcegos á xente volvéronse cada vez máis comúns nas últimas décadas. En 2003 foi a SARS. Apareceu nos mercados chineses de animais e propagouse mundialmente. A orixe deste virus, como a do Perú, rastrexouse ata chegar aos morcegos, que probablemente o tiveran durante séculos sen que fora detectado. 10 anos máis tarde, vemos que o ébola aparece en África Occidental e que sorprende a case todo o mundo porque, segundo o coñecemento do momento, supoñíase que o ébola non debía estar en África Occidental. Aquilo acabou causando o brote de ébola máis grande e máis estendido da historia.
So there's a disturbing trend here, right? Deadly viruses are appearing in places where we can't really expect them, and as a global health community, we're caught on our heels. We're constantly chasing after the next viral emergency in this perpetual cycle, always trying to extinguish epidemics after they've already started. So with new diseases appearing every year, now is really the time that we need to start thinking about what we can do about it. If we just wait for the next Ebola to happen, we might not be so lucky next time. We might face a different virus, one that's more deadly, one that spreads better among people, or maybe one that just completely outwits our vaccines, leaving us defenseless.
Hai unha tendencia preocupante, non é certo? Os virus mortais están aparecendo en lugares onde non podemos esperalos e, como comunidade de saúde mundial, non estamos preparados. Perseguimos continuamente a seguinte emerxencia viral neste ciclo infinito, sempre intentando extinguir as epidemias despois de que xa comezaron. Con novas enfermidades que aparecen cada ano, é o momento no que temos que empezar a pensar sobre o que podemos facer. Se esperamos a que apareza o próximo ébola, pode que a próxima vez non teñamos tanta sorte. Pode que afrontemos un virus diferente, un que sexa máis mortal, un que se propague mellor entre a xente ou pode que un ao que non lle afecten as vacinas, que nos deixe indefensos.
So can we anticipate pandemics? Can we stop them? Those are really hard questions to answer, and the reason is that the pandemics -- the ones that spread globally, the ones that we really want to anticipate -- they're actually really rare events. And for us as a species that is a good thing -- that's why we're all here. But from a scientific standpoint, it's a little bit of a problem. That's because if something happens just once or twice, that's really not enough to find any patterns. Patterns that could tell us when or where the next pandemic might strike. So what do we do? Well, I think one of the solutions we may have is to study some viruses that routinely jump from wild animals into people, or into our pets, or our livestock, even if they're not the same viruses that we think are going to cause pandemics. If we can use those everyday killer viruses to work out some of the patterns of what drives that initial, crucial jump from one species to the next, and, potentially, how we might stop it, then we're going to end up better prepared for those viruses that jump between species more rarely but pose a greater threat of pandemics.
Entón, podemos previr as pandemias? Podemos paralas? Estas son preguntas moi difíciles de responder, e o motivo é que as pandemias, as que se propagan a nivel mundial, as que queremos previr, en realidade son eventos moi raros. E para nós como especie é algo bo, é a razón pola que estamos aquí. Pero desde o punto de vista científico é un pequeno problema. O motivo é que se algo só sucede unha ou dúas veces, non é suficiente para atopar un padrón. Padróns que poden dicirnos onde e cando se producirá a seguinte pandemia. Entón, que facemos? Penso que unha das solucións que poderiamos ter é estudar algúns virus que habitualmente saltan de animais salvaxes ás persoas, ou ás mascotas, ou ao gando, mesmo se non son os mesmos virus que pensamos que van causar pandemias. Se podemos usar eses virus asasinos de sempre para descubrir algúns dos padróns que levan a ese salto inicial decisivo dunha especie á seguinte e, potencialmente, saber como podemos paralo, entón estaremos mellor preparados para os virus que saltan entre especies con menor frecuencia pero que supoñen unha maior ameaza de pandemias.
Now, rabies, as terrible as it is, turns out to be a pretty nice virus in this case. You see, rabies is a scary, deadly virus. It has 100 percent fatality. That means if you get infected with rabies and you don't get treated early, there's nothing that can be done. There is no cure. You will die. And rabies is not just a problem of the past either. Even today, rabies still kills 50 to 60,000 people every year. Just put that number in some perspective. Imagine the whole West African Ebola outbreak -- about two-and-a-half years; you condense all the people that died in that outbreak into just a single year. That's pretty bad. But then, you multiply it by four, and that's what happens with rabies every single year.
A rabia, aínda que é terrible, resulta ser un virus bastante simpático neste caso. A rabia é un virus mortal aterrecedor. Ten un 100 % de mortalidade, o que significa que se estás infectado coa rabia e non te tratan pronto, non hai nada que facer. Non hai cura. Morrerás. E a rabia tampouco é un problema do pasado. Incluso hoxe, a rabia aínda mata entre 50 e 60 000 persoas cada ano. Poñede ese número en perspectiva. Imaxinade o brote de ébola de África Occidental, é dicir, sobre dous anos e medio. Concentrades toda a xente que morreu naquel brote nun só ano. É bastante malo. Pero se o multiplicades por catro, é o que sucede cada ano coa rabia.
So what sets rabies apart from a virus like Ebola is that when people get it, they tend not to spread it onward. That means that every single time a person gets rabies, it's because they were bitten by a rabid animal, and usually, that's a dog or a bat. But it also means that those jumps between species, which are so important to understand, but so rare for most viruses, for rabies, they're actually happening by the thousands. So in a way, rabies is almost like the fruit fly or the lab mouse of deadly viruses. This is a virus that we can use and study to find patterns and potentially test out new solutions. And so, when I first heard about that outbreak of rabies in the Peruvian Amazon, it struck me as something potentially powerful because this was a virus that was jumping from bats into other animals often enough that we might be able to anticipate it ... Maybe even stop it.
O que diferencia a rabia dun virus como o ébola é que cando a xente está infectada, non adoita propagala. Isto significa que cada vez que unha persoa contrae a rabia, é porque foi mordida por un animal enfermo e normalmente é un can ou un morcego. Pero tamén significa que eses saltos entre especies, que son tan importantes de entender e que son tan raros na maioría dos virus, están sucedendo por milleiros na rabia. Así que, en certo xeito, a rabia é como a mosca da froita ou o rato de laboratorio dos virus mortais. Este é un virus que podemos usar e estudar para atopar padróns e potencialmente probar novas solucións. Polo tanto, a primeira vez que oín falar do brote de rabia na Amazonia peruana, pareceume que era potencialmente poderoso porque era un virus que saltaba de morcegos a outros animais tan a miúdo que quizais poderiamos ser capaces de previlo... E incluso paralo.
So as a first-year graduate student with a vague memory of my high school Spanish class, I jumped onto a plane and flew off to Peru, looking for vampire bats. And the first couple of years of this project were really tough. I had no shortage of ambitious plans to rid Latin America of rabies, but at the same time, there seemed to be an equally endless supply of mudslides and flat tires, power outages, stomach bugs all stopping me. But that was kind of par for the course, working in South America, and to me, it was part of the adventure. But what kept me going was the knowledge that for the first time, the work that I was doing might actually have some real impact on people's lives in the short term. And that struck me the most when we actually went out to the Amazon and were trying to catch vampire bats. You see, all we had to do was show up at a village and ask around. "Who's been getting bitten by a bat lately?" And people raised their hands, because in these communities, getting bitten by a bat is an everyday occurrence, happens every day. And so all we had to do was go to the right house, open up a net and show up at night, and wait until the bats tried to fly in and feed on human blood. So to me, seeing a child with a bite wound on his head or blood stains on his sheets, that was more than enough motivation to get past whatever logistical or physical headache I happened to be feeling on that day.
Como estudante posgraduado de primeiro ano cun vago recordo das clases de español do instituto, subin a un avión e fun ata O Perú para buscar os morcegos vampiros. Os primeiros anos deste proxecto foron moi duros. Non me faltaban plans ambiciosos para erradicar a rabia en América Latina, pero ao mesmo tempo, parecía haber unha cantidade infinita de aludes de barro e rodas picadas, cortes de electricidade e gastroenterites, todos parándome. Pero aquilo era o normal ao traballar en América do Sur, e para min, era parte da aventura. Pero o que fixo que continuara foi saber que por primeira vez, o traballo que estaba facendo podería ter un impacto real na vida da xente a curto prazo. E foi o que máis me afectou cando fomos á Amazonia e intentabamos atrapar morcegos vampiros. Todo o que tiñamos que facer era aparecer nunha aldea e preguntar. "A quen lle mordeu un morcego ultimamente?" E a xente levantaba as mans, porque nesas comunidades, que te morda un morcego é un suceso diario, pasa todos os días. Así que todo o que tiñamos que facer era ir á casa correcta, tender unha rede e aparecer pola noite, e esperar ata que os morcegos intentaran entrar e alimentarse de sangue humano. Para min, ver un neno cunha mordedura na cabeza ou manchas de sangue nas sabas, era máis que suficiente motivación para superar calquera dor de cabeza que puidera ter aquel día.
Since we were working all night long, though, I had plenty of time to think about how I might actually solve this problem, and it stood out to me that there were two burning questions. The first was that we know that people are bitten all the time, but rabies outbreaks aren't happening all the time -- every couple of years, maybe even every decade, you get a rabies outbreak. So if we could somehow anticipate when and where the next outbreak would be, that would be a real opportunity, meaning we could vaccinate people ahead of time, before anybody starts dying. But the other side of that coin is that vaccination is really just a Band-Aid. It's kind of a strategy of damage control. Of course it's lifesaving and important and we have to do it, but at the end of the day, no matter how many cows, how many people we vaccinate, we're still going to have exactly the same amount of rabies up there in the bats. The actual risk of getting bitten hasn't changed at all. So my second question was this: Could we somehow cut the virus off at its source? If we could somehow reduce the amount of rabies in the bats themselves, then that would be a real game changer.
Como estabamos traballando toda a noite, tiña moito tempo para pensar en como podería resolver este problema, e deime conta de que había dúas preguntas candentes. A primeira era que sabemos que a xente é mordida decontino, pero os brotes de rabia non se producen decontino. Cada dous anos, quizais mesmo cada década, hai un brote de rabia. Se dalgunha maneira puidésemos prever cando e onde sería o próximo brote, sería unha oportunidade real, poderiamos vacinar a xente con anticipación, antes de que ninguén morrese. Pero a outra cara da moeda é que a vacinación só é un parche. É unha estratexia de control de danos. Por suposto, salva vidas, é importante e temos que facelo, pero ao final do día, non importa cantas vacas ou canta xente vacinemos, seguiremos tendo exactamente a mesma cantidade de rabia nos morcegos. O risco real de que te mordan non cambiou en absoluto. A miña segunda pregunta era esta: Poderiamos dalgunha maneira erradicar o virus de raíz? Se puidésemos reducir a cantidade de rabia nos propios morcegos, sería algo revolucionario.
We'd been talking about shifting from a strategy of damage control to one based on prevention. So, how do we begin to do that? Well, the first thing we needed to understand was how this virus actually works in its natural host -- in the bats. And that is a tall order for any infectious disease, particularly one in a reclusive species like bats, but we had to start somewhere. So the way we started was looking at some historical data. When and where had these outbreaks happened in the past? And it became clear that rabies was a virus that just had to be on the move. It couldn't sit still. The virus might circulate in one area for a year, maybe two, but unless it found a new group of bats to infect somewhere else, it was pretty much bound to go extinct. So with that, we solved one key part of the rabies transmission challenge. We knew we were dealing with a virus on the move, but we still couldn't say where it was going.
Estariamos falando de cambiar dunha estratexia de control de danos a unha baseada na prevención. Como empezamos a facer iso? O primeiro que necesitabamos entender era como funciona este virus no seu portador natural, os morcegos. E é un desafío para calquera enfermidade infecciosa, particularmente nunha especie solitaria como os morcegos, pero tiñamos que empezar nalgún lugar. A maneira na que empezamos foi mirando algúns datos históricos. Cando e onde se produciron estes brotes no pasado? E quedou claro que a rabia era un virus que tiña que estar en movemento. Non podía quedar quieto. O virus pode circular nunha área un ano, quizais dous, pero se non atopa un novo grupo de morcegos que infectar, estaba destinado a extinguirse. Con iso, resolvemos unha parte clave do reto da transmisión da rabia. Sabiamos que tratabamos cun virus en movemento, pero aínda non podíamos dicir a onde se dirixía.
Essentially, what I wanted was more of a Google Maps-style prediction, which is, "What's the destination of the virus? What's the route it's going to take to get there? How fast will it move?" To do that, I turned to the genomes of rabies. You see, rabies, like many other viruses, has a tiny little genome, but one that evolves really, really quickly. So quickly that by the time the virus has moved from one point to the next, it's going to have picked up a couple of new mutations. And so all we have to do is kind of connect the dots across an evolutionary tree, and that's going to tell us where the virus has been in the past and how it spread across the landscape. So, I went out and I collected cow brains, because that's where you get rabies viruses. And from genome sequences that we got from the viruses in those cow brains, I was able to work out that this is a virus that spreads between 10 and 20 miles each year.
Basicamente, o que quería era unha predición ao estilo de Google Maps, que é, "Cal é o destino do virus? Cal é a ruta que vai tomar para chegar alí? A que velocidade se moverá?" Para facelo, recorrín aos xenomas da rabia. A rabia, coma outros virus, ten un xenoma diminuto, pero que evoluciona moi rápido. Tan rápido que, cando o virus xa teña pasado dun punto ao seguinte, vai ter sufrido varias mutacións novas. E todo o que temos que facer é unir os puntos a través dunha árbore evolutiva, e isto vainos dicir onde estivo o virus no pasado e como se propaga pola paisaxe. Así que saín e recollín cerebros de vaca, porque é onde se conseguen os virus da rabia. E a partir das secuencias de xenoma que conseguimos dos virus deses cerebros de vaca, puiden calcular que é un virus que se propaga entre 15 e 30 quilómetros cada ano.
OK, so that means we do now have the speed limit of the virus, but still missing that other key part of where is it going in the first place. For that, I needed to think a little bit more like a bat, because rabies is a virus -- it doesn't move by itself, it has to be moved around by its bat host, so I needed to think about how far to fly and how often to fly. My imagination didn't get me all that far with this and neither did little digital trackers that we first tried putting on bats. We just couldn't get the information we needed. So instead, we turned to the mating patterns of bats. We could look at certain parts of the bat genome, and they were telling us that some groups of bats were mating with each other and others were more isolated. And the virus was basically following the trail laid out by the bat genomes. Yet one of those trails stood out as being a little bit surprising -- hard to believe. That was one that seemed to cross straight over the Peruvian Andes, crossing from the Amazon to the Pacific coast, and that was kind of hard to believe, as I said, because the Andes are really tall -- about 22,000 feet, and that's way too high for a vampire to fly. Yet --
Iso significa que agora temos o límite de velocidade do virus, pero aínda falta a outra parte clave de a onde se dirixe en primeiro lugar. Para iso, necesitaba pensar un pouco máis coma un morcego, porque a rabia é un virus, non se move por si mesmo, ten que ser movido polo morcego portador, así que necesitaba pensar ata que distancia e con que frecuencia voaban. A miña imaxinación non me levou moi lonxe con isto e tampouco os rastrexadores dixitais que intentamos pór nos morcegos. Non podiamos conseguir a información que necesitabamos. No seu lugar, recorremos aos padróns de apareamento. Podiamos ver algunhas partes do xenoma do morcego, e indicaban que algúns grupos de morcegos se apareaban entre eles e outros estaban máis illados. E o virus estaba basicamente seguindo o rastro deixado polos xenomas do morcego. Pero un dos rastros destacaba por ser un pouco sorprendente, difícil de crer. Era un que parecía expandirse directamente sobre os Andes peruanos, cruzando desde a Amazonia ata a costa do Pacífico, o que era un pouco difícil de crer, como dixen, porque os Andes eran moi altos, arredor de 6700 metros, e iso é demasiado alto para que un vampiro poida voar. Porén...
(Laughter)
(Risas)
when we looked more closely, we saw, in the northern part of Peru, a network of valley systems that was not quite too tall for the bats on either side to be mating with each other. And we looked a little bit more closely -- sure enough, there's rabies spreading through those valleys, just about 10 miles each year. Basically, exactly as our evolutionary models had predicated it would be.
cando miramos máis de cerca, vimos, na parte norte do Perú, unha rede de sistemas de vales que non era demasiado alta para que os morcegos dos dous lados se apareasen entre eles. E miramos un pouco máis de cerca, en efecto, a rabia propágase neses vales, arredor de 16 quilómetros cada ano. Exactamente coma os nosos modelos evolutivos predixeron que sería.
What I didn't tell you is that that's actually kind of an important thing because rabies had never been seen before on the western slopes of the Andes, or on the whole Pacific coast of South America, so we were actually witnessing, in real time, a historical first invasion into a pretty big part of South America, which raises the key question: "What are we going to do about that?"
O que non vos dixen é que iso é importante porque nunca se vira a rabia nas ladeiras occidentais dos Andes, ou na costa do Pacífico de América do Sur, Estabamos presenciando, en tempo real, unha primeira invasión histórica nunha gran parte de América do Sur, o que suscita a pregunta clave: “Que imos facer sobre iso?”
Well, the obvious short-term thing we can do is tell people: you need to vaccinate yourselves, vaccinate your animals; rabies is coming. But in the longer term, it would be even more powerful if we could use that new information to stop the virus from arriving altogether. Of course, we can't just tell bats, "Don't fly today," but maybe we could stop the virus from hitching a ride along with the bat.
O que obviamente podemos facer a curto prazo é dicirlle á xente: necesitades vacinarvos e vacinar os vosos animais; a rabia está chegando. Pero a longo prazo, sería aínda máis poderoso se puidésemos usar a nova información para parar por completo a chegada do virus. Por suposto, non podemos dicirlles aos morcegos, “Hoxe non voedes”, pero quizais poidamos evitar que o virus viaxe co morcego.
And that brings us to the key lesson that we have learned from rabies-management programs all around the world, whether it's dogs, foxes, skunks, raccoons, North America, Africa, Europe. It's that vaccinating the animal source is the only thing that stops rabies.
E isto lévanos á lección clave que aprendemos dos programas de xestión da rabia en todo o mundo, xa sexan cans, raposos, mofetas ou mapaches, América do Norte, África ou Europa. Vacinar a fonte animal é o único que para a rabia.
So, can we vaccinate bats? You hear about vaccinating dogs and cats all the time, but you don't hear too much about vaccinating bats. It might sound like a crazy question, but the good news is that we actually already have edible rabies vaccines that are specially designed for bats. And what's even better is that these vaccines can actually spread from bat to bat. All you have to do is smear it on one and let the bats' habit of grooming each other take care of the rest of the work for you. So that means, at the very least, we don't have to be out there vaccinating millions of bats one by one with tiny little syringes.
Así que, podemos vacinar os morcegos? Óese falar sobre vacinar cans e gatos todo o tempo, pero non sobre vacinar os morcegos. Pode soar coma unha pregunta de tolos, pero a boa noticia é que en realidade xa temos vacinas da rabia comestibles deseñadas especificamente para os morcegos. E o que é aínda mellor é que estas vacinas poden transmitirse de morcego a morcego. Todo o que se ten que facer é pórlla a un morcego e deixar que o hábito de acicalarse entre eles se ocupe do resto do traballo. Iso significa, polo menos, que non temos que vacinar millóns de morcegos un a un con xiringas diminutas.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
But just because we have that tool doesn't mean we know how to use it. Now we have a whole laundry list of questions. How many bats do we need to vaccinate? What time of the year do we need to be vaccinating? How many times a year do we need to be vaccinating? All of these are questions that are really fundamental to rolling out any sort of vaccination campaign, but they're questions that we can't answer in the laboratory. So instead, we're taking a slightly more colorful approach. We're using real wild bats, but fake vaccines. We use edible gels that make bat hair glow and UV powders that spread between bats when they bump into each other, and that's letting us study how well a real vaccine might spread in these wild colonies of bats. We're still in the earliest phases of this work, but our results so far are incredibly encouraging. They're suggesting that using the vaccines that we already have, we could potentially drastically reduce the size of rabies outbreaks. And that matters, because as you remember, rabies is a virus that always has to be on the move, and so every time we reduce the size of an outbreak, we're also reducing the chance that the virus makes it onto the next colony. We're breaking a link in the chain of transmission. And so every time we do that, we're bringing the virus one step closer to extinction. And so the thought, for me, of a world in the not-too-distant future where we're actually talking about getting rid of rabies altogether, that is incredibly encouraging and exciting.
Pero só porque teñamos a ferramenta, non significa que saibamos como usala. Agora temos unha lista interminable de preguntas. Cantos morcegos necesitamos vacinar? En que época do ano necesitamos vacinalos? Cantas veces ao ano necesitamos vacinalos? Todas estas son preguntas fundamentais para lanzar calquera tipo de campaña de vacinación, pero son preguntas que non podemos responder no laboratorio. No seu lugar, estamos usando unha estratexia algo máis colorida. Estamos usando morcegos salvaxes reais, pero vacinas falsas. Usamos xeles comestibles que fan que o pelo brille e po fluorescente que se estende entre os morcegos cando se tocan, e iso permítenos estudar como se estendería unha vacina real nestas colonias salvaxes de morcegos. Aínda estamos nas primeiras fases deste traballo, pero os resultados ata o momento son alentadores. Indican que usando as vacinas que xa temos, poderiamos reducir drasticamente o tamaño dos brotes de rabia. E iso importa, porque se recordades, a rabia é un virus que sempre ten que estar en movemento, e cada vez que reducimos o tamaño do brote, tamén reducimos a probabilidade de que o virus chegue á próxima colonia. Estamos rompendo o vínculo na cadea de transmisión. E cada vez que o facemos, estamos facendo que o virus estea máis cerca da extinción. E a idea, para min, dun mundo no futuro non tan distante onde esteamos falando sobre erradicar por completo a rabia, é incriblemente alentadora e emocionante.
So let me return to the original question. Can we prevent pandemics? Well, there is no silver-bullet solution to this problem, but my experiences with rabies have left me pretty optimistic about it. I think we're not too far from a future where we're going to have genomics to forecast outbreaks and we're going to have clever new technologies, like edible, self-spreading vaccines, that can get rid of these viruses at their source before they have a chance to jump into people.
Deixádeme volver á pregunta orixinal. Podemos previr as pandemias? Non hai unha solución infalible para este problema, pero a miña experiencia coa rabia faime ser bastante optimista. Penso que non estamos lonxe dun futuro onde imos ter xenómica para predicir brotes e imos ter novas tecnoloxías intelixentes como vacinas comestibles que se expanden soas, que poden erradicar estes virus de raíz antes de ter a oportunidade de saltar á xente.
So when it comes to fighting pandemics, the holy grail is just to get one step ahead. And if you ask me, I think one of the ways that we can do that is using some of the problems that we already have now, like rabies -- sort of the way an astronaut might use a flight simulator, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and building up our tool set so that when the stakes are high, we're not flying blind.
Cando se trata de loitar contra as pandemias, o Santo Graal é ir un paso cara a adiante. E se me preguntades, creo que unha das formas nas que podemos facelo é usando algúns dos problemas que xa temos agora coma a rabia, da mesma forma que un astronauta usa un simulador de voo, entendendo o que funciona e o que non, e crear a nosa caixa de ferramentas para que cando o risco sexa alto, non voemos a cegas.
Thank you.
Grazas.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)