Nature: the nursery of diseases
It is said that nature is the source of our health and well-being since that is where we get our food and nourishment from. It can also be our source of happiness as its finest sceneries can appease our troubled minds. However, as much as it benefits us it is also the source of a myriad of viruses and diseases. It turns out that disease is mostly a result of the environment. Sixty percent of new infectious diseases affecting people are zoonotic, meaning they started in animals. More than two-thirds of these come from wildlife.
Zoonotic diseases are infectious illnesses that are transmitted from non-human animals to humans. The SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for the covid-19 pandemic, is an example of a zoonotic disease. It is said that the SARS-CoV-2 originated from a market in Wuhan, China that exclusively offers meat of wildlife animals.
It is also said that the virus came from bats that was transmitted to pangolins and then humans. Through observing the process of how the virus transpired, we can observe how humanity and nature are interlinked. There has been an imbalance in our system as to how we have abused nature and other natural resources.
The emergence of the pandemic is caused by the prevailing wildlife exploitation
meaning we are also the cause of this mayhem. It is also found that over the century the emergence of zoonotic diseases has been rampant meaning if we still prevail to step out of our boundaries and continue exploiting wildlife then there is a possibility that there will be a lot more epidemics in the future
References:
Cascella M, Rajnik M, Aleem A, et al. Features, Evaluation, and Treatment of Coronavirus
(COVID-19) [Updated 2022 May 4]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL):
StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554776
Eidson, M. (2021, December 17). zoonotic disease. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/science/zoonotic-diseas