Bushmeat refers to the gorillas, monkeys, chimps, porcupines, cane rats, anteaters, and other animals that Central African families depend upon for survival. Ironically, this diet is killing them; and it could kill much of humanity.
Humans have always been threatened by deadly viruses, whether delivered by fleabag rats bringing the plague or smallpox passed along by their fellow humans who carried the Variola variant. Today’s threat is far greater because a virus is able to travel just as far as the cells it infects.
Killer Viruses Take Full Advantage of Modern Transportation and the Global Economy
Modern life makes it easy for HIV/AIDS and Marburg (carried by apes and monkeys, our nearest evolutionary ancestors), Ebola (beware that fruit bat), West Nile (swat that mosquito), SARS, avian influenza, Lassa fever, Nipah, and Hendra viruses to pass from animal to hunter to his family to humans everywhere in the world in a matter of weeks, even days.
Back in 1963, Aidan Cockburn, the well known physician and anthropologist, wrote: "We can look forward with confidence to a considerable degree of freedom from infectious diseases at a time not too far in the future. Indeed . . . it seems reasonable to anticipate that within some measurable time . . . all the major infections will have disappeared."
Viral Pandemic – Now More Than Ever, the Greatest Threat to Humanity
The American surgeon-general claimed in 1968 that antimicrobials and vaccines would "close the book" on infectious diseases, allowing public health officials to shift their focus to chronic diseases. In fact, at least in the West, major killers such as polio, typhoid, cholera, and measles have been essentially defeated. Smallpox, which has been around since 10,000 BC, killing more humans than ever died in any war (300 to 500 hundred million in the 20th Century alone), has disappeared.
Yet, some 50 deadly new infectious diseases have moved from some viral reservoir -- a chimp, a bat, a bird -- to a human host. While public health providers were celebrating their victory over so many deadly viruses in 1968, African missionaries were reporting that a wasting disease was killing entire families and all the inhabitants of their villages. These were the earliest cases of a HIV/AIDS.
Hunting Then and Now in Central Africa
One hundred years ago, a hunter climbed into the almost impenetrable rain forest, killed an infected ape, and dragged it home. His wife butchered it. His family feasted on this lone source of protein. And then they all died horrible deaths. But it would have ended there.
Today, that hunter uses a logging company road to transport his kill to his village. People who live there travel and move goods along highways and through the air. Because humans are a genetically simple species, the whole human world can become infected by that thriving virus as it hitches a ride from one host to another. It can take years for that retrovirus to reveal the symptoms of disease.
Infectious diseases accounted for about 26 percent of the 57 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 2002, according to a World Health Organization 2004 report. The Milbank Memorial Fund reported in 2006 that, combined, these diseases are the second leading cause of death globally, following cardiovascular disease. For people younger than 50, infections from these viruses are the leading cause of death and result in nearly 30 percent of all disabilities.
Some Viruses are Essential to Life
Some viruses kill, but humans depend upon others. Consider vaccinia, the virus related to cowpox that was employed to kill off the smallpox viruses. Earth’s dominant life form is bacteria. Those bacteria that are controlled by viruses help to regulate marine photosynthesis. If those viruses were purged, fish and algae would also disappear.
Pandemics have so far started in Africa, China, Malaysia, Madagascar, and Laos. Research posts have been established in all these places to detect pandemics and halt their spread. Right now, a vaccine that works against one strain of any virus will not necessarily kill another strain. The goal is to someday develop a mega vaccine and a global pipeline to deliver it everywhere.
Meanwhile, the hungry hunter who comes across a pile of dead bushmeat is being warned to walk on. What are the odds of that happening when his or her family waits starving and malnourished at home? And what about those bio-terrorists who may be plotting to reintroduce smallpox to Westerners who are counting on their antibodies for protection? It's enough to make anyone mysophobic.
References:
Specter, Michael, “The Doomsday Strain,” The New Yorker, December 20 and 27, 2010, Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc., New York, NY
Sipress, Alan, The Fatal Strain: One the Trail of the Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic, Penguin Group USA, New York, NY, 2009
Preston, Richard, The Hot Zone, A Terrifying True Story, Anchor Books, Division of Random House, New York, NY, 1995
John Anderson - John Anderson has worked as a journalist, editor, advertising executive, Internet pioneer, and he has authored four books.
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