Newspapers are replete with the news of Covid-19 and its impact on the sharply declining economy of the country. It is estimated that even Bangladesh and Bhutan may beat India on the economic front. To blame the virus to have caused this devastation in life is one part of the story. We seldom find the linkage of Covid-19 pandemic and deforestation, forest degradation, and fragmentation of natural forests resulting from invasive species.
International treaties like CITES etc. have been brushed under the carpet by states like China where wildlife meat and its trade were brazenly going on for many years in the Wuhan wet market. This must be taken as a warning to secure ourselves from future pandemics.
While our technological advancement may deliver us the vaccine against SARS-CoV2 shortly but it does not essentially prevent the emergence of other zoonotic viruses in future, which may have their roots in flawed human planning that deeply impact the balance of the environment.
In the seminal volume “Emerging Infection” released in 1992, biological science experts highlighted the microbial threats posed by globalisation, increased demand for animal protein, rapid travel coupled with climate change, which will put pressure on the public health system. SARS, when it arrived in the winter of 2002, not only showed how interconnected the world was to rapidly spread a virus but also how many of these potential pandemic viruses were harboured by bats. Since then bats have been a focus of researchers to study viruses - they play host to and the physiology that allows them to do so. The first breakthrough came in 2005 when researchers isolated a virus very similar to SARS in horseshoe bat in China. However, the virus was missing a crucial amino acid in its spike protein that is needed to infect human cells. That changed in 2013 when a group of scientists working with the EcoHealth alliance, a global non-profit NGO based in New York, ventured into a limestone cave in southern China occupied by similar horseshoe bats. Dressed in hazmat suits for protection, the scientists drew blood from bats and collected fecal samples from the cave floor. Nearly a quarter of 117 animals’ samples contained coronavirus including the two strains which were almost identical to SARS. Subsequent studies by other researchers threw up compelling evidence that the SARS coronaviruses circulating in bats were evolving to acquire genetic changes that will allow them to close in on the ability to infect human cells. Peter Paz an author of the report, wrote, “This shows that right now in China there are bats carrying a virus that can directly impact people and cause another SARS pandemic.”
Bats are not only a natural reservoir of the coronavirus but also harbour Ebola, Nipah and Hendra viruses, which have caused human disease outbreaks in Africa, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Australia. How bats, the only flying mammal, can tolerate such a wide range of viruses is a subject of ongoing research. One hypothesis is that as part of their adaptation they have evolved dampened immune systems which does not fiercely attack these viruses. Over their 50 million years of existence on this planet, they have evolved a mechanism to repair DNA damage that occurs from the flight in unique ways which also allows them to control virus multiplication without involving their immune system. This hypothetically means that viral presence in their cells is not communicated to their immune system thus preventing sickness. Now the viruses can enter a state of symbiosis with the bats and utilise their wide range of foraging habits to find new hosts in other animals - including humans. And bat habitats often overlap human habitations. Over the past three decades, with the scale of deforestation that world has witnessed, bats are now a common entity in agrarian communities who have colonised these new lands to set up fruit orchards and animal farms.
The natural food of the bats can be either wild fruit or blood of other animals. A significant volume of forest land has been diverted for developmental projects in recent history. When forests are cleared for pasture or for cultivation or are fragmented for infrastructure like road building or even for dams or for electrical grid lines, bats are forced into longer nocturnal flights to forage. With ample fruits and insects on offer, the adjoining cultivational areas become a handsome foraging ground for bats - bringing them ever closer to the human population.
But the moot question is what made the virus jump to the human biological system and how was it living a symbiotic life in bats?
Most viruses are essentially of foreign genes which act as a door to door sales representative. Many of them are ultra-small and they do not have their cell wall. The virus looks like moon landers, carrying their information through DNA or RNA packaged in cap of proteins. For the viruses, the environment is a global genomic mall where viruses transfer genes normally over short evolutionary distances.
The Indian population of 1.4 billion people poses a huge pressure on the healthcare system. Starved of funds, few Indian states boast of a resilient healthcare system that can handle an epidemic running rampant in its population. From a public health standpoint to deal with disease epidemics, Kerala holds up as an exception, utilising its extensive network of primary healthcare facilities and local government and non-governmental entities to work with the local population in mitigating the impact of disease.
Lower sample handling capacity is one of the reasons for India’s rank at the 22nd position in coronavirus tests performed per million population. While diagnostic tests performed per million is not the sole criteria to contain an epidemic, it does play a role. Despite implementing the strictest lockdown in the world, the epidemic continues to rage throughout the country albeit with a mortality rate less than the global average. This, however, is a weak statistics to rejoice upon in the face of the extreme economic hardship that the population has been put through, the human cost of which is immeasurable. According to the famous novelist Arundhati Roy, “We may never know the real contours of the crisis.”
Thousands of lives have already been lost not due to our lack of knowledge but rather due to the unwillingness of our leaders to act upon the scientific evidence. There were ample of warnings from environmentalists and scientists of a looming pandemic, but the apathy of the political leaders to take sufficient preventive action to seriously prepare for the pandemic has put the global population at the mercy of the virus.
A study led by scientists at Stanford University used satellite imagery combined with local land use data to map human-animal conflicts and concluded that when forests are fragmented or cleared for agriculture or for other land uses, it increases the chances of zoonotic or animal to human diseases like the one responsible for Covid-19. We must remember that animals by nature abhor humans and will avoid human contact at all costs. With fragmentation of forests, they are left with no other choice than to forage in human settlements or in agricultural lands which allows pathogens to mix freely with farm animals and from thereon gain the requisite ability to infect humans. India has statutory provisions for forest and environmental clearances for development projects to be undertaken in forested areas but their implementation suffers from limitations like time and availability of specialists in addition to the big question of what is the worth of biodiversity in economic terms. It is not that protecting biodiversity will ensure our survival but it will at the very least, postpone such epidemics. In the first 20 years of this millennium, the human population has already endured 52 epidemics, which does not augur well for our immediate future. Biodiversity, we must remember, is a very key resource for the pharmaceutical industry which has utilized this nature’s pharmacy to find treatment solutions to a host of diseases. Sadly, we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate.
The analysis of around 6,800 ecological communities across six continents has illustrated that human development and biodiversity loss leads to disease outbreaks. Ecological models generate warnings but they are currently incapable of timing the occurrence of the next outbreak and therefore are not being considered by planners to chalk out strategies.
Dan Nepstad, a tropical ecologist and the Founder of San Francisco based Earth Innovation Institute, has voiced his concern and said, "My worry, frankly, is that people are going to cut down the forests more if this is where they think the next pandemic is going to come from."
Covid-19 has once again reminded the world about the risks that are associated with wildlife trade, both legal and illegal, is an extremely lucrative business worldwide. Global treaties to regulate and prevent trade in endangered species fail to be implemented locally. Countries openly flout the norms with impunity. India has banned wildlife trade in endangered species yet it ranks high amongst nations that witness one of the highest incidents of wildlife trafficking. Despite a strong legal framework in place, wildlife trade thrives in India due to the lack of adequate support structure and political apathy.
Scientists and policy makers need to work together to holistically address issues related to public health and environment and to ensure sustainable development. Economic gains from short term policies will only lead to more instances of Covid-19 like pandemics in future coupled with climate change which will possibly worsen the outcome. Planners and leaders ought to understand that sustainability of life lies in ecology. Only broad-based holistic education and awareness of human population can lead the way forward so that we leave a livable world for our future generations.
Add new comment