We're with our pals from the Ugandan Virus Research Institute.

Way are going to set up some insect traps on dhe discovered new viruses.

Estella is Chris today, which mosquitoes bite at different levels.

You can see those extensions.

They could put a monkey in a cage and then mosquitoes are modified.

This on, Boss?

The aim was to study.

You're a fever transmission, but in the process they put another bite us.

It was named Zika.

So this is the very tower that was used to discover the original Zika virus was right here long before the Zika outbreak in Brazil caused global panic was first discovered here in Uganda in 1947 pathogens air constantly mutating in acquiring you trades.

So researchers monitor the mosquitoes to track the emerging infections that could ignite the next pandemic.

Excuse us.

Flying all around me right now doesn't fill me with warm and fuzzies.

Tropical forests like this are breeding grounds for new viruses.

Once untouched, human populations now destroy around seven million hectares of forest each year, allowing diseases to have an easier time getting into human populations.

There are houses right there.

There's been encroachment upon the forest, and the airport is just past the houses.

What are the implications of people living so close to this forest?

The targets for viruses that are within this forest?

Let's paint my kisses.

Imagine one reimagining infection ALS into the population.

Each year, 1,000,000 people are killed by diseases transmitted from mosquitoes, and with increasing temperatures and population growth, that death toll is expected to climb in the coming years.

Zika vaccine trials are progressing right now, and even though it's daunting to vaccinate the entire world, scientists have proven they can eliminate threats.

In 1967 World Health Organization launched a campaign to eliminate one of the biggest killers in human history.

Dr.

Larry Brilliant was part of the team that eradicated smallpox using a very simple concept.

Instead of going all through India or Bangladesh and kind of accident everybody, we've got the idea that if we gave the vaccine only to those who are closest to an infected person and you put a ring around every infected person with your scarce vaccine, you would abort the epidemic, and that's what worked.

We have a lot of vaccines, but the vaccines we have our for known viruses.

When the next unknown virus jumps from an animal to human, we're not gonna have a vaccine on day one.

These live bird markets are prevalent throughout the developing world, and the tight quarters that these animals are in make it very easy for pathogens and infectious disease to spread from animals to humans.

Almost 70% off human infections actually come from minors.

Dr.

Dennis Pierrot gob investigates the threat of avian influenza.

Live bird markets.

Standing there, you could smell some little bit off stuff from the cages.

Now, these are a resource that are coming from the cages.

And should there be any infection in those cages your medical hated So that smell that I was smelling over their way refrain chose an aerosol is potentially really bad for you.

If there was any potential pathogen, that was within those the likelihood that you pick it up from a zero SOS as the buds fluff, the evidence is very kind.

There is a high concentration of poetry from different regions where they exposed and coming with different infections.

There is slaughtering off thes buds within the markets in very unhygienic conditions.

These eyes are not any exposed on.

Get this infection into the human.

Could you define or explain what?

So no sis's Isono sis is a disease that is transmitted from animals to humans.

The typical examples, for example, influenza.

And they are fights, many with the population increases in these countries.

Should the world be afraid of a crazy bird flu pandemic at a level that we've never seen before?

For now, the major threat actually is those diseases that we are unable to find treatment for soon.

Ah, tick disease poses a unique threat.

Transmitted from bodily fluids.

Deadly bowler epidemic was exacerbated by the poorly developed health systems and living conditions in West Africa.

The SARS outbreak was less lethal but struck wealthy countries as it went airborne and spread between people and cities and hospitals.

We are truly in the middle of the evolution of an epidemic.

Global health systems were unprepared as thes diseases devastated people around the globe.

But if a disease is deadly as Ebola transmit through the air like SARS, the consequences would be dire in the Netherlands aside, disprove just how easily this mutation could occur, Dr Ron Fouchier demonstrated how we genetically modified the H five n one bird flu virus to transmit through the air.

We took an avian age five and one bird flu virus, which is normal fecal aural transmitted and re genetically modified it to investigate what it would take to turn this into an airborne transmissible virus in humans.

So how exactly did you pull it out?

We took information from the dynamic viruses off the last century, engineered a bird flu virus to have some of these mutations.

And the idea is very simple.

You have ah ferret in one cage that you inoculate the virus and these two animals are separated by two steel grid.

So if the animal on the right becomes infected, the virus must have traveled through the air from the parrot on the left.

All epidemics, strains of flu last century had acquired this straight off airborne transmission.

We only needed five substitution Sze in two different genes.

What is virus to become airborne?

Deadly airborne virus is potentially a nightmare scenario.

So I created to prove that h five n one bird flu virus could acquire the trade so becoming airborne transmissible.

So now we can find out exactly what it takes for animal virus to become airborne.

Despite the breakthrough of his findings, Dr Fouchet is works and shock waves through the international community.

There are a lot of concerns about your findings being out in the public.

Yes, So when we submitted our manuscripts for publication, the U.

S government judged that our manuscript would be used by people to start biological weapons of terror.

We argued that the information that we collected has to be send back through the countries where outbreaks are appearing to inform the people about what to be on the lookout for you eventually dead.

Publish your findings that correct.

That's correct.

We convinced the World Health Organization to have a meeting with the countries that we're facing outbreaks to explain why they would need the information.

And so the people in Uganda or in Indonesia, China who do surveillance could be on the lookout for the mutations on the biological traits associated with increased risk.

What you're doing in the lab is happening in nature all the time.

Absolutely flu pandemics happen every 2030 years without any involvement of scientists, mad scientist or good sign what we did in the lab was nothing different from what is happening in animals around the globe.

Every day, when an animal virus mutates and spreads into the human population, it inevitably causes chaos.

A CZ.

The Ebola crisis spiraled out of control in 2014.

The U.

S government spent $2.4 billion in response more than 1/4 of the USS entire annual global health budget, pushing scientists like Dr Brilliant to find more preemptive solutions for future outbreaks.

We have to strengthen public health in the poorest countries to make ourselves safe.

Human beings are only as strong as our weakest surveillance system.

This is one instance where America first means working with the poorest countries in the world to protect them out of selfishness.

Our own enlightened self interest.

Ugandans now at the forefront of deadly disease monitoring with remarkably effective bio surveillance system that was implemented with the help of American health agencies in the U.

S.

Army.

His motorcycle guys, there's a whole network of them.

They ride around, pick up blood samples, and they take it from the local clinics to the bigger hospitals.

It was originally set up to deal with the HIV AIDS epidemic, and then they had a very smart idea to piggyback the examination of the blood samples for other infections, like Ebola, SARS yellow fever.

It's very low fi and rudimentary and cheap, but it's working through that surveillance system that is now in place.

We're capable of reducing the relative on the virus.

Outbreaks are detected In 2000 746 people were infected by a small Ebola outbreak in Uganda.

Since then, three outbreaks have emerged here, but this bio surveillance system helped prevent each one from spreading beyond 25 infections.

It's not just surveillance of humans.

It's surveillance of animals who could carry a virus that we don't know about but has potential for human disease samples for poultry swine for rapid virus detection so that immediately way but protect it before it spreads out.

If we have good pandemic preparation, if we find outbreaks quickly, we won't have that pandemic.

It's our option.

Outbreaks are inevitable.

Pandemics are optional.