Issue (WIWE) status: Submitted, Unpublished

Wild Card's progress: Advanced

This Wild Card came from: 
Interviews

The source of this Wild Card: 
Paul CUNNINGHAM, The University of Manchester, interviewed by MIoIR

Likelihood timeframe and scenario features : 
now-2025

Wild Card's description: 

If something arises which is currently low key, not particularly sexy in the research sense, then you begin to have a backlog, as you lack the research to deal with the threat when it arises. It is a wildcard that has already come and lingered: the idea of ‘zoonoses’ – animal-borne diseases that effect humans, e.g. Avian flu (Bird flu), Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). They emerged suddenly and there was very little underpinning research going on. Government had to step up its research effort to understand them better.