Reducing deforestation and the exploitation of nature are the first steps in breaking the chain of ailment emergence.
In late 2013, in the village of Meliandou in rural Guinea, a group of children playing near a hollow tree frightened a small colony of bats hiding inside. Scientists guess that Emile Ouamouno, who later became the first tragic “index” case in the west African Ebola eruption, was likely exposed to bat faeces while playing near the tree.
Every pandemic starts like this. An innocuous human activity, such as eating wildlife, can spark an outbreak that leads to an epidemic. In the 1920s, when HIV is thought to have occurred in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, scientists believe transmission to humans could have been caused by a bushmeat hunter cutting themselves while butchering a chimpanzee. In 2019, we can speculate that a person from south-west China entered a bat cave near their village to hunt wildlife for sale at the local wet market. Perhaps they later developed a nagging cough that represents the beginning of what we now know as Covid-19. Now, a growing human population, ever-encroaching development, and a globalized network of travel and trade have accelerated the pace of pandemic emergence. We’re coming into a new pandemic era.
Most pandemics begin in the emerging disease hotspots of the world; the edges of forests in regions such as West Africa, the Amazon basin, and south-east Asia. Tropical rainforests are residence to a rich variety of wildlife, which in turn carry an array of viruses. We know far more about these animals than we do about the germs they carry. An estimated 1.7m viruses exist in mammals and birds (the origins of most pandemics), but less than 0.1% have been described. They spread to millions of people each year; though they often don’t result in noticeable symptoms, the thin volume means that plenty can.
Soul Musing 