Researchers at Harvard University accuse world leaders of failing to address the root cause of pandemics – the destruction of nature.
The Expert Group “Preventing Pandemics at the Source” (PPS) believes that the subject has not been addressed by the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, nor in the report commissioned by the WHO on the subject.
According to scientists from the PPS, the WHO “has ignored the root source of all pandemics of the last century, namely the transmission to humans of viruses from animals, especially wildlife.”
Deforestation or the hunting of wild animals would indeed promote contact between wild animals potentially carrying a virus and humans or livestock. Scientists estimate that nearly 70% of recent infectious diseases are of animal origin, including Ebola, avian influenza and possibly Sars-Cov-2.
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Limiting contact between humans and wildlife while protecting biodiversity is according to the PPS the cheapest and most effective solution to prevent pandemics.
The reduction of deforestation highlighted
Having an efficient health system or having a vaccine does not prevent the emergence of epidemics, alert the researchers. Among the solutions they put forward: reducing tropical deforestation, ending wildlife trafficking and even better protection of livestock against infections.
“By maintaining the status quo on these spreading factors, we will miss out on a key, relatively inexpensive opportunity to reduce the risk of future pandemics. We must […] ensure that sufficient funds are set aside to deal with this issue comprehensively, ”the experts conclude.
The origin of Covid-19 is still uncertain. If the WHO favors the thesis of a virus transmitted to humans by a bat via an intermediate animal such as the pangolin, many experts do not rule out the possibility that the virus accidentally escaped from the Institute of Wuhan Virology in China.
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