A new study suggests that there may be a link between human exploitation of nature and pandemics.
The study suggests that close contact with wild animals — whether it be through humans, trade or habitats — can put the world closer to pandemics through outbreaks of new diseases.
“Viruses jump species when there is close enough contact to enable transmission between an infected animal and a susceptible person. Animals in close contact can share viruses with humans by respiratory droplets, or contact with feces, urine or blood,” study author Dr. Christine Kreuder Johnson, a professor of epidemiology and wildlife health at the University of California, Davis, told Newsweek.
Consider the novel coronavirus. Scientists believe the virus originated in bats or another animal, like pangolins, which may have led to transmission into the human species. Trade of these animals may have helped the spread, according to BBC News.
For this study, which was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal, researchers reviewed multiple other scientific papers for how diseases cross over from animals to humans. Then, they reviewed data about extinction risk from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The researchers used both data sets to figure out what the link might be.
The researchers studied this data before the current pandemic. But they long believed that “emerging infectious diseases that come from wildlife and affect people,” Johnson told CNN.
According to BBC News: “Wild animals at risk of extinction due to human exploitation were found to carry over twice as many viruses that can cause human disease as threatened species listed for other reasons. The same was true for threatened species at risk due to loss of habitat.”
The researchers said that the level of pandemics and disease can rise if humans continue to encroach on animals’s space and habitats.
Johnson told Newsweek: “As natural habitat is diminished, wildlife come into closer contact with people. Wildlife also shift their distributions to accommodate anthropogenic activities and modification of the natural landscape. This has hastened disease emergence from wildlife and put us at risk of pandemics.”
Researchers not that this is a sign that wildlife trade can create problems for the entire world if not kept in check, Teresa Telecky, vice president of wildlife at Humane Society International, said in a statement.
She said that the current pandemic may be the “tipping point” for protecting animals.
“The current COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated just how deadly the wildlife trade can be, not just for the wild animals involved, but also for people throughout the world. COVID-19 has killed thousands of people and will likely have lasting negative impacts on local and global economies. It is a tipping point that governments globally must not ignore. Wildlife markets worldwide are a petri dish for the next global pandemic, so governments across the globe must do everything they can to prevent this from happening again, and that means banning this dangerous trade and helping those traders involved find alternative livelihoods as quickly as possible.”