![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterRemember the Ebola? A disease that is by orders of magnitude deadlier than Covid. Of course, there is a vaccine for Ebola, and it has helped limit mortality. But the big question is, what other new pathogens and infections could spread out of places like the Tropics? And not only there.
Humankind has met with dozens of such new and unknown pathogens that have caused pandemics. Many came from Africa. Ebola came from the rivers and marshlands of Congo. Identifying the disease was largely dependent on a chain that included both local medical foot-soldiers who worked in the remote corners of the rainforests, and hi-tech labs in the West.
Now the West relies heavily on those local workers in Congo and elsewhere, who act as first-line guards against similar diseases. The constant fear and concern that a new pathogen could appear any moment, is very acutely felt and very real in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There are countless zooanthroponotic diseases that hop between animals and humans, and humankind is going to face many of them. Yellow fever, the various forms of flu, rabies, brucellosis, Lyme disease to name a few - often originating from rodents or insects. Many have caused pandemics in the past.
HIV originated in chimps, and mutated into the disease that became the scourge of the 20th century. SARS, MERS and Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) are all coronaviruses that got transferred to humans from animal sources (bats, most likely in the latter case).
Yellow fever was the first recorded disease that was transferred from animal to human, it was identified in 1901. Science has discovered about 200 other viruses of this sort since then. About 3-4 new types of viruses are discovered every year, most of them coming from animals.
Experts believe that the increasing number of newly emerging viruses are largely due to the disruption of the environment and trade with wild animals. Since their natural habitats are constantly encroached upon, various animals such as bats, rodents and insects are the ones that survive in areas along the contact zone, where larger animals perish. The former could cohabit with humans more easily, which is why they are the main culprits and vectors for spreading new diseases among us.
Scientists connect the old Ebola areas with human encroachment into the tropical rainforest. In a 2017 research, the explorers used satellite data to find out that 25 out of 27 source areas located along the periphery of the rainforest biome in Central and West Africa between 2001-2014 were places that had undergone man-made deforestation a couple of years prior. Those were regions with high human population density, where the virus had perfect conditions to spread - but the loss of forests was the second factor that added to that.
The UN is warning that if the current rate of deforestation and population growth continues, the tropical rainforest of Africa could entirely disappear by the end of the century. In that case the animals and the viruses that they carry will collide with the human population, with catastrophic results.
The front-line fight against this threat, especially the early-warning system, is now being aided by heavy investment from the developed world into new local labs on the spot. Countries like Japan, the US, EU, and the WHO itself, plus a number of international donors, foundations, and academic institutions are all involved. the labs are equipped with capabilities of sequencing the genome of any new pathogens. This is the early warning system for the whole world against both known diseases like Ebola and more importantly, entirely new and unidentified ones that we are yet to encounter. This is not charity - it is a strategic investment.
If a new pathogen emerges in Africa, it would take time for it to spread worldwide. So discovering it early is crucial, as it would allow scientists around the world to design new strategies for fighting these threats. The front-line in this fight includes medics, virologists and researchers who work deep in the African rainforest in search of both known and unknown viruses, trying to find them before they have wreaked havoc across the entire globe.
Humankind has met with dozens of such new and unknown pathogens that have caused pandemics. Many came from Africa. Ebola came from the rivers and marshlands of Congo. Identifying the disease was largely dependent on a chain that included both local medical foot-soldiers who worked in the remote corners of the rainforests, and hi-tech labs in the West.
Now the West relies heavily on those local workers in Congo and elsewhere, who act as first-line guards against similar diseases. The constant fear and concern that a new pathogen could appear any moment, is very acutely felt and very real in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There are countless zooanthroponotic diseases that hop between animals and humans, and humankind is going to face many of them. Yellow fever, the various forms of flu, rabies, brucellosis, Lyme disease to name a few - often originating from rodents or insects. Many have caused pandemics in the past.
HIV originated in chimps, and mutated into the disease that became the scourge of the 20th century. SARS, MERS and Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) are all coronaviruses that got transferred to humans from animal sources (bats, most likely in the latter case).
Yellow fever was the first recorded disease that was transferred from animal to human, it was identified in 1901. Science has discovered about 200 other viruses of this sort since then. About 3-4 new types of viruses are discovered every year, most of them coming from animals.
Experts believe that the increasing number of newly emerging viruses are largely due to the disruption of the environment and trade with wild animals. Since their natural habitats are constantly encroached upon, various animals such as bats, rodents and insects are the ones that survive in areas along the contact zone, where larger animals perish. The former could cohabit with humans more easily, which is why they are the main culprits and vectors for spreading new diseases among us.
Scientists connect the old Ebola areas with human encroachment into the tropical rainforest. In a 2017 research, the explorers used satellite data to find out that 25 out of 27 source areas located along the periphery of the rainforest biome in Central and West Africa between 2001-2014 were places that had undergone man-made deforestation a couple of years prior. Those were regions with high human population density, where the virus had perfect conditions to spread - but the loss of forests was the second factor that added to that.
The UN is warning that if the current rate of deforestation and population growth continues, the tropical rainforest of Africa could entirely disappear by the end of the century. In that case the animals and the viruses that they carry will collide with the human population, with catastrophic results.
The front-line fight against this threat, especially the early-warning system, is now being aided by heavy investment from the developed world into new local labs on the spot. Countries like Japan, the US, EU, and the WHO itself, plus a number of international donors, foundations, and academic institutions are all involved. the labs are equipped with capabilities of sequencing the genome of any new pathogens. This is the early warning system for the whole world against both known diseases like Ebola and more importantly, entirely new and unidentified ones that we are yet to encounter. This is not charity - it is a strategic investment.
If a new pathogen emerges in Africa, it would take time for it to spread worldwide. So discovering it early is crucial, as it would allow scientists around the world to design new strategies for fighting these threats. The front-line in this fight includes medics, virologists and researchers who work deep in the African rainforest in search of both known and unknown viruses, trying to find them before they have wreaked havoc across the entire globe.
