Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- There is a 27 percent chance that a pandemic as deadly as COVID-19 could occur this decade, according to a British health forecasting analytics company, as viruses emerge more often than vaccines. At the same time, the introduction of the vaccine is the key to reducing mortality, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta Internet portal reports.

Climate change, rising international travel and population growth, and the threat of new viral diseases are increasing the risk of a deadly pandemic, according to Airfinity. Experts have modeled that in a worst-case scenario, a bird flu-type virus that mutates and is believed to allow human-to-human transmission could cause 15,000 deaths in Britain alone in a single day.

Health experts, turning their attention to preparing for the next potential global threat, note that over the past two decades, three major coronaviruses have already appeared in the world that cause SARS, MERS and COVID-19, as well as the swine flu pandemic in 2009.