Frédéric Singa is a veterinarian at the Dzanga Sangha Nature Reserve in the Central African Republic. He catches bats, collects samples from gorillas, and visits patients—all to understand which pathogens are circulating in the forest. But the samples are far from sufficient. Singa also wants to regularly test wild game meat at local markets. Will he succeed in winning over the skeptical hunters and market vendors?

The samples Singa collects end up in a field lab in the rainforest and are also sent to Greifswald, Germany, for further analysis, where Professor Fabian Leendertz at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health maps global risk hotspots. The connection between the Central African rainforest and the health of people in Europe is more direct than most realize.

“Virus Hunt in the Rainforest” asks whether the lessons of Covid-19 have truly been learned—and whether we are better prepared for the next pandemic.