The world is suffering in the clutch of Covid-19, which has dishevelled our normal life by almost making us live on our own. The virus, SARS-CoV-2, was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Since then, due to its high transmission rate, it has spread to the whole world, increasing the number of infected from a few to millions. For the wide outbreak, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the novel coronavirus epidemic had turned into a global pandemic.
According to researchers, bats are the possible reservoir of this virus, as both bat coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2 share many similarities. How this virus transmitted from a bat to a human body is unknown, but it’s apprehended that it must have occurred through an intermediate host residing between bats and humans.
This intermediate host can be any other animal. Therefore Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease, i.e. in which the virus is transmitted from animals to humans. The outbreak of a zoonotic disease is not a new one. A recent survey proves that 75% of emerging and re-emerging diseases are either zoonotic or vector-borne (those which are carried from infected animals to others through insects).
For example, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) came from chimpanzees in Africa in the 1950s. Nipah virus, which caused an epidemic outbreak in Malaysian pig farmers in 1998, was transmitted from fruit bats. Others include SARS, MERS-CoV, Ebola, etc.
In the present circumstances, it’s needless to say that these diseases wreak havoc on human civilization. As these viruses come from animals, a human body is not habituated with these. Inevitably, after being infected, humans generally don’t have any antibody that can fight against these infections. When human-to-human transmission occurs, it poses a great risk and even leads to a pandemic. The question which seems to linger on is: why is this repetitive emergence occurring? Who or what is responsible for this?
Since time immemorial, humans have thrived on earth by farming their lands, keeping animals, and using earthly resources. Gradually, the population has grown enormously, consumption has increased and due to the extreme devouring of earthly resources, the balance between supply and demand has been disturbed. The green revolution, industrial revolution and technological innovation — all these have made human beings the master of our planet.
But everything comes at a price. All these human activities cause an unprecedented amount of environmental pollution. Huge amounts of deforestation, alteration of lands and killing animals have damaged the ecosystem. Extreme burning of fossil fuels releases harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane which are the main culprits of global warming, i.e. a rise in the overall temperature of earth’s surface which causes the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center show that there is a 10% reduction of permafrost, the frozen ground situated in the northern hemisphere. This, on the one hand, releases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, and on the other hand, unleashes disease-causing bacterias and viruses which are trapped in the ice.
In a recent incident in Russia’s northern Siberia, a child died from an outbreak of Anthrax, which likely came from the corpses of infected reindeer buried seventy years. The magnitude of climate change, deforestation and huge biodiversity loss is causing extreme harm to the ecosystem. Humans are encroaching more land due to a massive increase in population. As there is a steep rise in biodiversity loss, the natural food chain is disturbed; consequently, animals are searching for food where humans live.
Increasing global warming is also changing the pattern of animal migration. Gradually, the boundary between wildlife and humans is vanishing and communion between them is growing rapidly. Hence, the frequency of different diseases, especially those which are zoonotic are rising in an unparalleled way. Therefore, it’s high time to scrutinize all the activities which harm the ecosystem.
Emergency measures have to be taken to preserve biodiversity. Intense land farming, deforestation and bushmeat hunting should be discarded immediately. And if we take this lightly, then beware. Covid-19 will not be the end; rather, there will be many more infections to come.