Thursday, January 3, 2013

Breed them, feed them and then eat them

Breed them, feed them and then eat them – contracting animal diseases frequently might just be their way of getting back at us…

If one observes keenly, there are certain peculiarities about these outbreaks, about the kind of victims as well as about the recurrence of such virus attacks. While the Spanish flu presented an unusual preference in its choice of victims – young, healthy adults instead of those with weak immune systems – the origin of the ailment is considered to be in the Eastern world. Again, an entirely new variety of human influenza, ‘Chicken Ebola,’ surfaced in the human population of Hong Kong in 1997. It was then that Hong Kong’s entire poultry population (ducks, geese and chickens) was slaughtered. SARS or bird flu also started among the Orientals and culling of several poultry animals was done to avoid it from gaining pandemic proportions. As far as the recurrence of these influenzas is concerned, influenza experts remind that aquatic birds maintain all the genes of all influenza viruses in the world and they transmit it to other species periodically. Even if these viruses are very ancient, they still have the capacity to evolve, to acquire new genes and new hosts. So, chances of such troubles hitting mankind again can’t be ignored.

While the 1918 Spanish flu took its toll in the pre-penicillin era, new types of viruses always pose a threat. It is quite clear that breeding farms for poultry and pig are the breeding grounds for such viruses. Well, the increased frequency of recurrence of such influenzas in the past one decade could be nature’s way of telling us that culling humans isn’t as difficult too!
 

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
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