Environmental Degradation May Cause More Pandemics: Expert

Inger Andersen, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has highlighted that environmental degradation and biodiversity loss happening on a large scale have increased the risk of frequent pandemics like the ongoing COVID-19 in the coming years. She said that over 60 per cent of non-infectious disease and about 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic diseases (transmitted from animals to humans).