Humans to blame for pandemic

22/04/2020, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,PARIS

Whether it came from a bat or a pangolin is not certain, but one thing is: the coronavirus outbreak comes from the animal world. It is human activity that enabled the virus to jump to people, and specialists are warning that if nothing changes, many other pandemics of this nature will follow.

The name given to diseases transmitted from animals to humans is “zoonoses”, based on the Greek words for “animal” and “sickness”.

They are not new — tuberculosis, rabies, toxoplasmosis, malaria, to name just a few, are all zoonoses.

According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 60% of human infectious diseases originate from animals. This figure climbs to 75% for “emerging” diseases such as Ebola, HIV, avian flu, Zika, or SARS, another type of coronavirus. The list goes on.

“The emergence of zoonotic diseases is often associated with environmental changes or ecological disturbances, such as agricultural intensification and human settlement, or encroachments into forests and other habitats,” says UNEP report.

“Changes in the environment are usually the result of human activities,” it adds.

Gwenael Vourc’h of INRAE, a French public research institute, also blames human activity for the crossover between species.“Given the growth of the human population and its ever more intense use of planetary resources, the destruction of more and more ecosystems multiplies contacts,” she says.

A key area of concern is deforestation to make way for agriculture and intensive livestock farming.

In terms of endangered wildlife, a study by American researchers published last week shows that those who share the most viruses with humans are precisely “populations declining due to exploitation and loss of habitat”.