There are many pathogens that animals can transmit to humans, such as the corona virus. Two scientists suspect that this disease will not stop there.
- The novel lung disease Covid-19 is triggered by coronaviruses that have been transmitted from animal to human.
- So-called zoonoses also include diseases such as rabies or Lyme disease.
- To prevent the emergence and spread of pandemics in the future, governments must issue an important ban, as two scientists call for.
Bats or armadillos as carriers? There are many explanatory models around the beginning of the current coronavirus pandemic. The fact is that the central Chinese province of Hubei and the metropolis of Wuhan in it are considered to be the site of the outbreak. There, the first people at an animal market had been infected with the novel corona virus. Here, Sars-CoV-2 "found its way through the larval rollers, small carnivorous crawl cats that had previously been infected with Sars in bats, " write Jared Diamond, evolutionary biologist and professor of geography at the University of California (Los Angeles) and virologist Nathan Wolfe, who jointly write articles about emerging diseases.
In their eyes, people should not only come into contact with larval scooters, but also with bats or pangolins. The risk that so-called zoonoses are transmitted to humans is too great. Covid-19 is also one of these infectious diseases, which are caused by bacteria, parasites, fungi or viruses and can be mutually transmitted between animals and humans. The term zoonosis is derived from the Greek words zoon (living being) and nosos (disease). " Transmission can take place through direct contact *, via vectors such as ticks and mosquitoes, but also via milk, eggs, meat or other foods . (...) Through factors such as rapid population growth, increasing mobility, changing animal breeding and - Zoonoses are becoming more and more important as well as climate change, "says the National Research Platform for Zoonoses on their website.
Chinese scientists find Sars-CoV-2 in an Asian bat
Before Covid-19 * there were several diseases for which animal consumption was held responsible. The outbreak of the Sars pandemic in 2002 cost the lives of hundreds of people and the Mers virus is also one of the corona viruses that are likely to develop in bats and can be transmitted to humans via other animals. In the case of the novel pathogen Sars-CoV-2, scientists are currently assuming that infected larval rollers have transmitted the virus to humans .
The Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research reported that Chinese researchers had found the novel corona virus in five species of wild animals, including the larval roller, the spotted musk (also a sneak cat), the Asian civet, and the hoofed bats. However, it was not always the same virus that was detectable in humans. "The greatest genetic agreement with 96.2% of the DNA nucleotides is provided by the Java horseshoe bat, these results do not mean that SARS-CoV-2 comes from these wild animals. In Germany no comparably high agreement with the SARS CoV-2 virus detected in domestic wild animals, " says the Leibniz Institute press release.
Also read : Coronavirus: Cats in particular run the risk of catching the virus from their owner .
Ban on wildlife markets to prevent future pandemics
Virologist Wolfe and biologist Diamond see the ban on wildlife markets as the most important way to prevent zoonoses like Covid-19 in the future . China wants to prevent new zoonoses by banning such markets, but it is deeply rooted in Chinese culture that wild animals are eaten and components of animals such as dandruff of pangolin are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
"Despite all the cultural differences, China and other governments must act quickly and firmly now and end the wildlife trade. If that doesn't happen, we can predict with some certainty that Sars and Covid-19 won't be the last epidemic to spread globally As long as wildlife is used for human consumption or other purposes - not just in China but around the world - there will be further epidemics, "stated Wolfe and Diamond in their article.
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