As a society, we have been relying heavily on economic growth as a ticket for collective happiness. But as we try to produce “more” of everything by converting natural resources into economic assets, we have inadvertently opened a can of worms, and that, among other problems, is starting to cause serious health risks.
Coronavirus: We live in the era of EIDs (emerging infectious diseases)
The world economy has made tremendous leaps over the past several decades, accelerated by aggressive globalization. Thanks to rapid output growth, there are a lot “more” people today (a staggering 7.8 billion compared to less than 3 billion 100 years ago), who are entitled and asking for “more” of everything. While there is no doubt that expanding economic activity has improved the lives of billions of people, it has also helped an unexpected group to thrive with whom we share (often without realizing it) this planet: pathogens. This new world with more inhabitants, more food (livestock), more trade/travel and less untouched wild ecosystems provides an ideal environment for pathogens to become stronger, more resilient and pervasive, resulting in a spike in emerging infectious disease (EID) events including SARS, MERS, Ebola, Chikungunya, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, Zika, and most recently, 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
What is an EID (emerging infectious disease)?
2019 Novel Coronavirus was first reported in China at the end of December 2019, and has since spread to almost 30 countries in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America in a matter of 30 days despite the efforts by many countries to contain it. Its deadly nature and the speed to spread around the globe is putting the world in panic. Those are the major traits of the emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), which are defined as:
- An outbreak of a previously unknown disease
- A known disease that is rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range in the last 2 decades
- The Persistence of an infectious disease that cannot be controlled.
EIDs are terrifying as they seem to emerge from nowhere, catching us off-guard and putting our lives in danger.
But in reality, these diseases do not emerge out of nowhere. On the contrary, deadly pathogens have been making a significant hop-skip-jump behind our backs to trigger the outbreak of multiple EIDs. And believe it or not, our economic activities have been helping them.
Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance, was one of the first experts who noticed the frightening trend of increasing infectious diseases. According to him, the frequency of EID events have been increasing rapidly over the past several decades, and zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted from wild animals, are increasing with particular speed. HIV, Ebola, SARS, West Nile Virus and 2019 Coronavirus are all severe, zoonotic diseases transmitted via wild animals such as chimpanzees or bats.
It’s been long understood that it is rare for viruses that infect wild animals to be transmitted into the human body. However, these viruses are finally finding a path – by first using other animals (such as domestic livestock that humans consume) as hosts, and therefore acting as stepping stones to human infection.
As part of the effort to combat EIDs, Dr. Daszak and his research team have been collecting significant amounts of information regarding emerging pathogens (many of which never reach humans) in order to understand the mechanisms of transmission to the wider population. They identified two major characteristics of the origin of outbreaks as they mapped infection hot spots: they are high population density AND high mammal diversity. The ecosystems with mammal diversity are concentrated in tropical regions. If you overlay the population map, you get a rough idea of where the deadly pathogens might develop.
It makes sense: we already know that most known fatal infectious diseases, such as Malaria or Yellow Fever, originated in tropical regions where there exists abundant wildlife and abundant pathogens. But what makes EIDs different and difficult to control compared to the infectious diseases in the past? There is another decisive factor: increased changes in land use.
This is how it works. First, humans enter pathogen-rich wild ecosystems as part of economic activities such as logging, mining, crop production or urbanization. This creates a golden opportunity for pathogens to escape the wilderness and find new classes of hosts which is so much easier today: there are astounding 6 billion livestock animals every year – to support the lives of 7.8 billion people. These animals live close enough to both the wild environment and urban areas to provide the perfect bridge for pathogens to reach humans.
To make the situation even easier for viruses, animals are traded and people travel frequently. The pathogens can travel at great speed, finding new destinations that could easily be the other side of the globe.
Thanks to the advanced economy, we now have almost 8 billion people and 6 billion animal stock and counting on a planet that has limited capacity. But as more people means more resources and more land in need, we turn to natural areas and convert them into whatever we believe we need.
What we never knew was that pathogens – highly resilient and resistant existence – were also ready get out of their original habitats and expand their territory by taking advantage of what modern economy inadvertently set up for them. As Dr. Daszak accurately summarized, EIDs emerge from the areas where humans and wildlife are IN CONFLICT. By changing the untouched wild ecosystem, we may literally be opening a can of worms, not only causing environmental destruction with serious side effects but also risking our own lives, which are endangered by unknown deadly pathogens.
It’s important to remember that it’s difficult to solve the problem by applying symptomatic treatment when there are underlying conflicts. Humans are intelligent enough to come up with vaccines for each EID, but pathogens will also keep evolving to find more efficient route/ways to propagate. As far as we keep invading natural territory and get closer to wild pathogens, keep increasing the number of mammals to feed more mouth, and keep trading/traveling more, new pathogens and new EIDs will be right behind us. Isn’t it time for curative treatment, instead of symptomatic?