Preventing Zoonotic Pathogens
- Tayler Vomacka
- Apr 9, 2020
- 1 min read
Recent research has given more support to the idea that biodiversity protection in one part of the world can prevent novel diseases from emerging and leaping into another.
Not all species in a community are equally susceptible to a given disease, nor are they all equally efficient transmitters.
In diverse ecosystems well separated from human habitations, viruses ebb and flow without ever having a chance to make it to the level pandemic.
Act two enter people, those protections begin to break down. Disrupted ecosystems tend to lose their biggest predators first. What remains are smaller critters that reproduce in large numbers, and have immune systems more capable of carrying disease without succumbing to it.
When there are only a few species left, they’re good at carrying disease, and they thrive near people, creating a “Virus spillover risk”.
Viruses from wildlife transmittable to people (zoonotic pathogens) rise as contact increases between them.
Almost half of the new diseases that jumped from animals to humans after 1940 can be traced to humanities changes in land use, agriculture, or wildlife hunting.
SARS, Ebola, West Nile, Lyme, MERS, and others all fit the profile.
There may be 10,000 mammalian viruses potentially dangerous to people.
“We need to tell people right now that there is a series of things we need to do once we’re out of this mess to make sure it never happens again.”
- Lee Hannah
(Senior Scientist at Conservation International)
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