Latest Virus Link to Climate Change?

Two viruses are making the news - Hantavirus and Ebola. Hantavirus has led to lengthy quarantines, and Ebola has made another appearance in Africa. Will either become a repeat of 2020 when everyone was forced into their anti-socializing “prison cells”?

While neither is considered a pandemic, the World Health Organization is starting to emphasize “zoonotic spillover” – the transmission of viruses from animal to human. Both the name and definition are misnomers. The viruses aren’t starting in zoos, and humans are animals, though everyone likes to think otherwise. Blame our ego.

I’m not going to get into the science of the viruses because social media loves to censor anyone with a differing view than theirs, so I’ll stick to the zoonotic storyline.

"This is our new normal," says Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. Hotez says health professionals can't say for sure why zoonotics is growing, but suggests one possibility could be climate change, which has led to more interactions between humans and wildlife. So far, so good.

However, he then adds, "Climate change has an important role. With the rising temperatures, altered climate patterns, altered weather patterns, altered rainfall patterns, what's happening is animal hosts are migrating to seek new habitats to improve access to their food or their shelter."

Or… maybe they’re just returning. For decades animals have had their habitats reduced as the human population grew and civilization expanded into areas that were once nothing but complete wilderness. It’s still happening. Animals may be migrating into new areas, but more likely they’re returning to areas previously occupied. They have little choice. Natural habitats can only hold limited numbers of wildlife. Survival is innate. Evolution and expansion are the two basic options for wildlife.

To its credit, the article did alter course.

"It's not just the bats and rats coming closer to the people; it's the people coming closer to the bats and rats. We are now starting to see... megacities of 10, 15, 20 million people... and, with that, deforestation. So, it's people coming closer towards animal habitat."

So, what can we do about the rise of zoonotic spillover events? Hotez encourages health authorities to act preemptively, by working on vaccines and treatments for illnesses that could likely emerge. On the surface, this seems like a great idea. However, vaccines are expensive to discover and bring to market. Predicting illnesses that “could” emerge is like a lottery which is financially wasteful when wrong. The medical profession can’t even predict with any great accuracy the latest strain of the flu likely to be going around. How can we expect them to predict something that comes almost completely out of the blue.

Getting better at diagnosing possibilities is a must. Creating better and more diversified antiviral drugs is a must, so as to limit viruses evolving against only a single drug. Making vaccines, once discovered, readily available to those who want them, is also important.

Lastly, we must avoid 2020-style ignorance and scare tactics. Six years later, we’re still paying the price for that fiasco.

Source used: USA Today