UAE has idea to save world from next pandemic – News

Between 2015 and 2020, the global rate of deforestation is estimated at 10 million hectares per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Photo: AFP

The rapid spread and rise of zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19 and monkeypox should serve as a wake-up call for the world to understand the state of the environment and the extent to which humans are destroying or encroaching on animal habitats in their quest for development and economic growth.

Deforestation should concern people and industry, unless forests and fauna are protected, we face not only an environmental catastrophe, but a viral catastrophe, where new pathogens can wreak havoc on humans. People and beasts in close proximity open up new avenues for new pathogens that are constantly changing form and virality, causing enormous damage to life and the larger economy, as evidenced by the Covid lockdown and the loss of millions of lives.

According to the latest count, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has claimed 6.36 million innocent lives while infecting 555 million people worldwide. Some diseases that have been dormant for decades, such as monkeypox, are re-emerging, with cases reported around the world. Let’s get straight to the point here: people stray or wreak havoc on natural animal terrain for their own development.

In doing so, they may have provoked the wrath of other creatures with whom they share the world. So, are these zoonotic diseases a form of revenge from apes and bats? Scientists believe that may indeed be the case, although it has not been conclusively confirmed in a Covid case that first emerged in a wet market in Wuhan, China two years ago.

However, a recent UAE study by the Sharjah Beeah Environmental Service, published by Elsevier in its journal Advances in Hygiene and Environmental Health, confirms that environmental degradation has contributed to the increase and spread of dangerous pathogens.

Since the 1980s, more than 700,000 viruses from high-risk virus families have been observed. The study found that through improved environmental management, the risk of infectious zoonotic disease outbreaks could be mitigated and, ultimately, Covid-19-like outbreaks prevented.

Meanwhile, experts warn that more epidemics are on the way. One way to reduce risk is to prevent deforestation for agricultural and industrial purposes. From 2015 to 2020, the global rate of deforestation is estimated at 10 million hectares per year, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Since 1990, the world’s primary forest area has declined by more than 80 million hectares,” FAO said.

Clearly, more needs to be done to prevent the next health crisis, and that could mean leaving wildlife where they should be – in their natural environment. “Between 2000 and 2010, large-scale commercial agriculture (mainly cattle raising and growing soybeans and oil palm) accounted for 40 percent of tropical deforestation, while local subsistence farming accounted for another 33 percent.” The UAE study is a reminder that global Health is associated with green mulch. It is never too late to prevent the next crisis.