| This December marks five years since authorities began contacting the World Health Organization with questions about a mysterious disease spreading in Wuhan, China. While the public is much better protected against Covid than it was in those early days, the same isn’t true of other pandemic threats. If another outbreak occurred, overworked and underfunded public-health systems may have to rely on corporations to respond, experts warn. But it’s hard to know how industry would show up again. Many companies that won government contracts and scaled up production to meet the demands of Covid have shuttered or gone bankrupt. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who has said that he might disband the White House’s new pandemic office, recently tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has vowed to give infectious disease research “a break.” That's a problem as climate change amplifies the risks. With 2024 poised to be the hottest on record, shifting weather patterns are fueling diseases like dengue, which is having a record-breaking year. Infectious disease experts fear what this means for new and emerging viruses.  Note: 2024 figures through Sept. 30 Source: Pan American Health Organization Deep in the Amazon rainforest, doctors are struggling to diagnose illnesses plaguing fever-stricken patients. Earlier this year, I traveled to the border of Colombia, Peru and Brazil to witness how virus hunters are working to uncover the culprits behind these mysterious illnesses. In the December issue of Businessweek, I take you with me to Leticia, Colombia, to witness the work of scientists scouring for pandemic threats. You’ll meet Jorge Emilio Osorio and Juan Pablo Hernández-Ortiz, two Colombian virus hunters backed by Abbott Laboratories as they follow a trail of genetic clues.  Osorio and Gavin Cloherty, head of infectious disease research for Abbott’s diagnostics unit, outside a lab at the National University of Colombia at Medellín. Photographer: Riley Griffin Medical mysteries like these aren’t exclusive to the Amazon basin. Osorio and Hernández-Ortiz are a part of a growing network of scientists formed by Abbott that spans more than 60 sites around the world. Already, they’ve discovered 20 new viruses, and Abbott has used the findings to develop more than 30 prototype tests. “In the past, if there was an outbreak in Leticia, nobody cared,” Hernández-Ortiz says. That’s changed since the Covid pandemic. Now, people know that what emerges from the Amazon could soon be sickening people around the world. — Riley Griffin | 
