Our Interaction with Animal Communities May Determine the Next Pandemic

HEALTH Our Interaction with Animal Communities May Determine the Next Pandemic Environmental degradation and factory farming make future pandemics more likely

BY MOHAMMAD ABDULLAH

Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 dashboard (https://covidinfo.jhu.edu/diagnostic-testing/testing-dashboard/) reports that the pandemic has killed more than 2 million people worldwide.

Last December, the World Health Organization warned that it might not be the “big one” they have long feared and have repeatedly warned the world to prepare for (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/all).

Scientists say as humans increasingly encroach on the habitats of wild animals, the likelihood of big epidemics rises. The key to preventing another pandemic, they say, is reducing the viruses’ animals-to-humans spillover risk.

Animals have always had viruses coming through their bodies. More people are venturing into wild ecosystems and thus exposing themselves to new animal infections, and yet there is no effective global early detection and disease containment system. Deforestation and urbanization continue, as do global trade and the consumption of wild animals. Moreover, concentrated animal feeding operations make it easier for viruses to jump the species barriers and cause new zoonotic diseases.

For instance, in 1998 Malaysia cleared rainforests for palm oil, lumber and livestock farms (https://news.mongabay.com/ July 30, 2013). Consequently, some of the displaced fruit bats ended up on new pig farms where mango and other fruit trees also grew. Their saliva and feces infected pigs with the Nipah virus, which sickened farmworkers and others living close by, killing hundreds of people in several outbreaks (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>books>NBK215318).

Wet markets — popular in certain Asian countries — offer prime conditions for viral spillover, as they feature stressed animals stacked in cages with bodily fluids running down. A year or so ago, a mysterious pneumonia outbreak was initially thought to be SARS, a coronavirus disease that had emerged there in 2002 and had now returned through one such market in Wuhan, China. Actually, Covid-19 was a new disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus that infects and replicates in human cells.

Like earlier pandemics and outbreaks, Covid-19 began inside an animal. Viruses, which only replicate inside living organisms, can adapt rapidly to a new host. Covid-19, thought to have originated in bats, probably could only infect humans via an intermediate host animal, thought to be pangolins. Further research is needed to confirm this theory.

“Novel” diseases such as Covid-19, ones not previously seen in humans, trigger pandemics.

Coronavirus is a family of viruses that causes zoonotic diseases. Corona means “crown,” due to the crown-like spikes on their surface. Most coronaviruses circulate among animals, including pigs and bats. Bats are hosts to many viruses such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Nipah, usually without any symptoms.

Kaiser Health News said experts had long anticipated the pandemic. But a 20-year period of good luck with emerging pathogens — including SARS, the H1N1 (“swine flu”) pandemic, MERS, Ebola, Zika virus and two strains of bird flu — gave them a false sense of security (https://www.khn. org>news>article>many-us-health-experts-under...).

TheGuardian reported that 60% of all emerging diseases are now zoonotic; 80% of new pathogens come from the top pork-producing countries, such as China. Globally, more than 90% of livestock and poultry live in factory farms. Viruses may jump from animals to humans when people interact with them in new ways.

It’s believed that the race to produce cheap pork led to the African swine fever by incorporating such practices as cutting the cost of feeding pigs. And now, according to the Guardian on Oct. 8, 2020, artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to standardize pigs, much like fruit and vegetables, unaware of the unintended consequences (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/behind-chinas-pork-miracle-how-technology-is-transforming-rural-hog-farming).

A factory pig farm in Xingan County, east China’s Jiangxi Province (Peng Jianxin/Handout via Xinhua)

Pigs and birds are raised in factory farms. While most avian diseases aren’t transmissible to humans, they are more transmissible to pigs. Once they establish themselves in pigs, they are more likely to evolve and become able to infect humans (https://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov>pmc>articles>PMC7120200).

Historical data suggests that zoonotic influenza originated from influenza type A viruses circulating among birds, pigs and horses. Pigs have receptors, to which both avian and mammalian influenza viruses bind, which increases the potential for virus gene substitution to produce new re-assortants or novel viruses in pigs. Pigs are like a “mixing vessel” (www. who.int>default-source>searo>whe>).

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of viruses: DNA and RNA viruses. Unlike the African swine fever, which has a DNA genome, coronaviruses have RNA genomes, which allow the virus to mutate and

change, similar to influenza viruses, more quickly and easily than DNA viruses. Linda Saif, virologist and distinguished professor in Ohio State University’s Food Animal Health Research Program, says this is how coronaviruses infect different tissues in different animal species (https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/, March 19, 2020).

According to scientists, mutations happen all the time; some take off, and many don’t. The rate at which a virus can mutate is an important factor to consider when investigating which viruses will be able to jump between species.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has already mutated into two variants (British and South African), which are

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focuses on an influenza virus dubbed G4, a descendant of H1N1 strain that originated in Mexico and caused the 2009 pandemic. Researchers say that the strain “possessed all the essential characteristics of being highly adaptive to infect humans.” About 10% of swine workers tested positive for the virus. Kin-Chow Chang, a professor of veterinary molecular medicine at the University of Nottingham, said on BBC News: “Right now, we are distracted by coronavirus. But we must not lose sight of potentially dangerous new viruses”(https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/asia/china-swine-flu-pandemic-intlhnk-scli-scn/index.html). New finding that pigs in China are more and more frequently becoming infected with G4 has scientists worldwide taking serious notice. There have been serious pandemics before. One of the severest pandemics, the “Spanish” flu (1918-19) caused by the H1N1 virus, killed at least 50 million people worldwide (https://www.cdc. gov>flu>1918-pandemic-h1n1). THIS DEADLY PANDEMIC SHOULD SERVE AS But this was before intercontinental air travel and A WAKE-UP CALL, FOR IT HAS SHOWN THAT globalization, a time when the world’s 2 billion people lived mostly in rural areas. Today, the world population is

OUR WORLD IS MORE INTERCONNECTED over 7 billion. The 2009 swine flu pandemic — the same

THAN EVER BEFORE AND THAT HUMANS, strain as the 1918 flu pandemic (H1N1) — originated in pigs from a tiny region in central Mexico and spread

ANIMALS AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH much faster worldwide. ARE ALL CRITICALLY LINKED. The U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths — 400,000 deaths as of Jan. 20, [former] President Donald Trump’s last day in office. Some believe that if everyone had taken this pandemic seriously from the described as highly contagious and spreading much beginning, we wouldn’t be in this mess; others remain unconvinced that Covid-19 faster than the original “Wuhan” variant. Still more is as bad as the scientists say. Ironically, they do extremely well with this virus, variants may be on the way. Scientists are concerned have only mild cold symptoms or none at all (asymptomatic carriers), while others because a more transmissible variant will increase are on ventilators and die within days or survive long hospitalizations and tell the death toll simply because it will spread faster and others to take it seriously. Scientists have never seen such an unpredictable virus. infect more people. Unhealthy people are more likely While the vaccines’ mass rollout offers hope, we don’t know when that will to contract and transmit disease than healthy people. occur. Meanwhile, we need to follow the public health guidelines and get vacciVaccine companies say that vaccines appear to work nated, as the vaccine will protect you and your family, and also slow the virus’ against these variants. But to stop disease transmis- transmission. sion people must get inoculated, because mutation The Islamic concepts of hygiene and halal and haram have many virtues. God depends upon replication. made things halal and haram for a reason. Muslims believe that halal things

The good news about vaccines might have been lead to the society’s health and welfare, whereas haram things eventually lead to tempting for the tired and exhausted public. Scientists, problems, diseases and suffering. however, still don’t know how the virus jumped into Some preliminary evidence from Britain suggests that people infected with humans and got into a Wuhan meat market, from the new variant tend to carry greater amounts of the virus in their noses and where it is thought to have spilled over into humans. throats than those infected with earlier versions (www.nytimes.com>coronavi-

This is important, because knowing the virus’ rus-variant-transmission). The more virus carried by infected people in their origin and from which animal it jumped to humans noses and throats, the more they expel into the air and onto surfaces. Islam’s helps determine how that jump occurred and find ritual ablution plays an important role in mitigating the virus’ spread. In effect, ways to prevent that transmission pathway in it works as a pretty cheap sanitizer. the future. Dr. Emilia Skirmuntt, an evolution- This deadly pandemic should serve as a wake-up call, for it has shown that ary virologist at the University of Oxford who our world is more interconnected than ever before and that humans, animals is studying viruses that affect bats and disagrees and environmental health are all critically linked. with the theory that pangolins served as the inter- God put animals on Earth both as communities (Quran 6:38) and for our mediate species between bats and humans, told benefit. Thus, we must try to reduce the risk of a spillover of viruses from animals MailOnline (U.K.) Feb. 17, 2021: “The ancestor to humans. We need to include them in our strategy to control pandemics by of this coronavirus was an animal species which mitigating person-to-person spread, to see them as partners whose health and were reservoirs for millions of years and then there habitats should be protected. This will require global cooperation, because no was some mutations which made it more efficient country is safe unless all countries are safe. ih with infecting other species and humans. That’s Mohammad Abdullah, DVM, MS, MPH, who retired as deputy district manager at USDA-FSIS, is the author of “A Closer Look how we got SARS-CoV-2.” at Halal Meat: From Farm to Fork” (2016).