27-Dec-24

Neil Vora, disease detective for many years, learned one thing from his job: Our reactive approach to public health is flawed. People are attempting to prevent and control outbreaks, and yes, these two are important, but alone are not enough. He also found a correlation between deforestation and the African Ebola outbreak. Communities in Guinea had to clear their forests for farms, and not too long after, a boy in that community died of Ebola. The virus was believed to spread from bats that used to live in the trees that were cut down. From there, many viruses were perceived to have emerged from animals, including COVID. Hundreds of thousands of viruses are likely to spillover from animals. Another cause of spillover (and the main focus of the TED-talk)? Deforestation. The single  biggest driver of animal-borne diseases. Animals that survive deforestation tend to live long lives and carry germs or diseases in them that can affect us. Additionally, people moving into deforested areas come in closer contact with wildlife, providing more opportunity for germs flowing back and forth. Animals also tend to spread more disease when they’re afraid of losing their homes (I found this quite interesting, but it makes sense). Climate change also plays a role, and will continue to do so in the future. More than half of infectious diseases are aggravated by climate change. People have tried to find solutions to the massive number of outbreak causes. And while it might seem logical, killing the animals that spread disease is NOT the move. We depend on some of these animals, such as the bats for pollination and insect control, that would only hurt us and further expose us to more viruses if we killed them. But you know what we can do to combat the likelihood of the outbreaks? Stop cutting down tropical forests. People located near the Amazon implemented this solution, and in 8 years, deforestation dropped by 80%, increasing agricultural output and bettering the area. If we want to make an impact, it will take every single one of us to protect the health of our globe.