In Brazil, the Covid-19 pandemic is out of control. Some epidemiologists say that the appearance of a new virus in the Amazon is imminent.
Deforestation, poaching, atmospheric pollution, global warming: all of these factors bring humans into contact with deadly viruses. Manaus scientists have issued this cry of alarm on France Culture : “It is in the Amazon that there is the greatest risk of seeing the emergence of a new virus, and this risk is infinitely greater than what we saw in Wuhan, “warns biologist Lucas Ferrante, doctoral student at the Amazon Research Institute (INPA). Indeed, anthropogenic pressure (attacks repetitions of Man over the forest) destabilizes the fauna and unbalances this gigantic cultural medium that is the Amazon.
A greater risk than in Wuhan
“Because here, the forest contains more viruses and a greater environmental degradation than elsewhere in the world”, continues the biologist Lucas Ferrente. Intensive agriculture, factory farming and gold panning are the main causes of deforestation in Brazil. Activities encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro since the start of his mandate at the head of the country. Today, more than a hundred requests for impeachment have been submitted to the Brazilian parliament to denounce its catastrophic management of the pandemic.
Deforestation promotes the emergence of new viruses
The degradation of ecosystems and deforestation facilitate the transmission of viruses between wild animals and humans, where farm animals are sometimes intermediate vectors.
According to the WHO, more than 70% of emerging diseases in humans come in particular from wild animals. This UN body is today calling for a worldwide ban on the sale of wild animals in markets. The handling of wild animals, or their blood before being consumed, increases the possibilities of so-called “zoonotic” infectious diseases (transmitted to humans by animals).
10 years ago, a study conducted by Sarah H. Olson for The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) showed that in Brazil, a 4.3% increase in deforestation between the years 1997 and 2000 had made a jump by 50% the number of cases of malaria. At Lehigh University in 2017, another study carried out on a larger scale on 67 countries made the same observation.
The impact of climate change
Global warming may have played a role in the passage of the coronavirus to humans, by offering new habitats for bats, a species of presumed origin of the virus, according to a study published on Friday, February 5, 2021 in the journal Science of the total environment. The exact chain of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 remains to be determined, but climate change and ecosystem destruction are bringing humans and animals into more frequent contact.
Nearly 500 types of viruses have already been identified in the Amazon
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