It is easy to blame a bat, but is our wanton destruction of nature and the traditional habitats of species responsible for the pandemic gripping the world right now?
The more we destroy nature, the more likely we are to see fearsome diseases like COVID-19 emerging. The coincidence of the new diseases with the destruction of biodiversity is highly significant.
Animals that can host pathogens dangerous to humans such as rodents, birds, and bats, are proportionately more common in human-occupied spaces than in remote areas.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered by a coronavirus of animal origin has awakened the world to the threat that zoonotic diseases pose to humans.
In order to move from wild animal hosts to humans (or other animals), the pathogen must come into contact with humans, and it must adapt to living and reproducing in a new species. These boundaries are the result of human activity motivated by socioeconomic factors, such as when people move into a wild area to develop land for farming or housing.
Among the uncertainty enveloping the world today, what remains clear is that zoonotic disease outbreaks will continue to occur.
Zoonotic diseases (zoonoses) are animal diseases and infections that transmit to humans: for example; SARS, Ebola, H1N1 (swine flu), brucellosis, and rabies.
COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases, from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers, caused by viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human population.
The rising trend in zoonotic diseases is driven by the degradation of our natural environment; through land degradation, wildlife exploitation, resource extraction, climate change, and other stresses. Scientists blame the increase in the spillover of pathogens from animals on two trends: rapid globalization and humanity's cavalier interaction with nature. Indeed, rapid deforestation and the global wildlife trade are terrible for our Mother Nature.
Globalization can turn outbreaks into PANDEMICS. Fifty years ago, it would have been much harder for COVID-19 to spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world.
Humans have altered more than half of Earth's habitable land to meet the needs of our burgeoning population. We must restore degraded habitat and protect undisturbed natural areas in order to have a better public health and a better environment. Otherwise disease outbreaks and pandemics are likely to emerge regularly.
The next virus pandemic is not far away, unless humans change the way they live.
Coronaviruses are thought to have been circulating in bats for centuries but have only recently become a leading source of zoonotic disesases, alongside other illnesses that originated in animals such as HIV, Ebola and Zika.
If preventive veterinary medicine had been applied in China and other countries to better monitor live animal markets and wild domestic animal factory farms, this COVID-19 pandemic would have been much less likely to occur.
There is a growing worldwide clarion call for a ban on wet markets and meat consumption, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What is a wet market? A wet market typically has multiple open-air stalls, spread over a large area, where vegetables, fruits, meat and fresh seafood are sold. Some of these sell and slaughter live animals, including poultry and fish, on-site, while some even engage in illegal dealings of wild animals. A wet market is dubbed so because, in such a market, water and ice are used to keep the food and meat fresh.
Any country with wet markets and animal-based food practices needs to be aware that the next novel zoonotic-based outbreak might occur again.
We overexploit animals and nature. Why are we fighting COVID-19 without fighting the cause?
Considering the current pandemic and the potential for further zoonotic disease spill-over from the danger of having wet markets, isn't it time to put an end to these kind of markets?
The novel coronavirus is transmitted by droplets from coughs and sneezes, so the best way to prevent getting it is by practicing social distancing and by wearing masks.
If there is one lesson from COVID-19, it is that we can no longer manage environmental and economic pressures separately.
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