Pandemics - the origin of the diseases

摘要

What links an Irish emergency department nurse to a poultry and pig farmer, a subsistence hunter and a primate conservation ranger? Not only are each of these people susceptible to being infected by a human pandemic, but they are all part of an interconnected web, from the origin of human pandemics to the frontline workers attempting to combat them. The unfortunate fact is that, human pandemics, like Covid-19, originate in animals, and the rate of occurrence of human pandemics has been accelerating due to some unlikely human activities. A whopping 70% of new diseases that have emerged in humans since 1990, ultimately originated from wildlife, and, worryingly, the rate of human pandemic-level emergences has been rapidly increasing. There are many recent examples of such epidemics (widespread occurrence) and pandemics (global occurrence): Covid-19, originating in bats, likely with pangolins as an intermediary host, before reaching humans; acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), originating in chimpanzees; bird flu, from multiple wild aquatic bird species; swine flu, originating in pigs; severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), originating in small mammals, possibly bats; Ebola, originating in bats and other bushmeat; and the list goes on and on. Although originating in animals, the driving force behind these pandemics is human destruction of the natural world, which initiates a chain of events leading to global pandemics.