The most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are a result of human behavior and acts towards nature.
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a pandemic disease,
categorized by The World Health Organization. Since its first case in Wuhan, China during last December 2019, there has been widespread theorizing about the origins. The scientist suspected the possible spread from a Wuhan market, where diseased animal was butchered or consumed. And now the issue is prolonged.
Related to disease spread and future measures, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Global Wildlife Conservation are working together on info graphics. Like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) by intermediate host Asian palm civets identified in 2003, Ebola haemorrhagic fever by hosts fruit bats (1976) or MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) by camels, coronavirus is one example of animal virus/pathogen that has come from wildlife trafficking.
What is wildlife trafficking?
Animals are hunted, trapped and sold in market for food, medicines and pet trade. As per IUCN, Wildlife trafficking, the illegal cross-border trade in animals and plants, has transformed into one of the largest transnational organised criminal activities alongside drug trafficking, arms and human trafficking.
How disease from wild can be transfer to humans?
Wild animals are like reservoirs of diseases. Even healthy looking wild animals can harbor disease and can make humans or other animals sick. When these pathogen carrying wild animals are forced in to the market and come in contact with humans, the disease is spread.
How do pathogens exchange the body?
Disease will occur only if specific requirements regarding pathogen, host and environment are met. Pathogenic or disease causing viruses can change the hosts. Avian influenza, HIV, and the causal agent of variant Creutzfeldt–Jacob encephalitis are well-known examples which are thought to originate from birds, primates and cattle, respectively.
All living pathogenic microorganisms produce molecular components upon secretion within or injection into host tissue, in the establishment of an infection. These molecular components play a role in the release or uptake of nutrients or in the evasion or suppression of the host immune system. A zoonotic disease can be thus caused by virus, bacteria, fungi or parasites, which spreads between animal and people.
From wildlife, these pathogens and viruses jump to other species/humans only when humans poach/hunt or destroy their habitat. Viruses naturally mutate and are able to recombine, sharing different components to create new viruses. So wildlife trading and meat markets, where multiple live species are kept together and butchered on the same surfaces, prove a perfect breeding ground for novel pathogens. We need to ban live animal trading, illegal trafficking / poaching and wildlife consumption to prevent this disease spread. This will help prevent wildlife species from extinction.
WCS is providing all updates on wildlife-related issues, COVID-19 and some of the most common rumors about the disease. In a provable manner, the virus was not manufactured in a lab. We certainty are not sure about the animal host who passed the disease to humans. As per WCS, the evolutionary or ancestral host was most likely a bat. Still the scientist don’t know how the virus got into humans and which possible intermediary host it passed through.” On march 2nd WCS twitted about rumor of virus transmission – No one knows for sure about animal i.e., a snake, bat or pangolin. The Wuhan market was cleaned up before samples were collected. Regardless to this, the packaging and storage conditions promotes transmission. It is hard to pinpoint the actual transmission route or source of infection because wildlife traders and buyers are less likely to share information openly with officials.
China has announced a ban on the consumption of wild animals. Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia are looking into regulating the wildlife trade. All countries need to step up to prevent future viral outbreaks by banning the trade and consumption of wildlife. A single exception can make suffer others/ the world.
· The scope of the zoonotic diseases is huge and complex. Just an estimated 1 percent of wildlife viruses are known.
· We fail to understand and take care of the natural world, which resulted in failure of self-restoring systems.
· It isn’t only a public health issue, but an economic one, and needs to be sorted.
Great activity!