THE African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) Vice President, Species Conservation and Science, Dr Philip Muruthi says the increase in human and wildlife interaction across Africa could increase the prevalence of Zoonotic diseases and probably lead to another devastating pandemic of the same magnitude as COVID-19.
By Michael Gwarisa
A zoonotic disease or zoonosis is any disease or infection that is naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans and there are over 200 known types of zoonosis in the world. The coronavirus belongs to the zoonosis family as its origins have been tracked back to bats. Other Zoonotic infections that have been recorded to date include the Ebola, Zoonotic influenza, Salmonellosis, West Nile virus, Plague, Rabies among others.
Speaking at the ongoing AWF Advanced Training on Environmental Journalism in the Modern Age in Harare, Zimbabwe, Dr Muruthi said in order to address the growing threat of zoonosis, there was need to adopt an integrated approach towards human, animal and environmental health.
The current COVID-19 pandemic we are experiencing is a Zoonosis disease. I also hear that there might be another pandemic in the world soon and some of these pandemics will become more frequent if we do not treat nature with respect.
“The more we can limit interactions between people and wildlife, including eating wildlife, the more we limit the trafficking of wildlife or using wildlife for food, the more we are likely going to be limiting the spill over or witness the diseases jumping from species of origin in (animals) to humans. Some of these issues exists because our system has not evolved with that pathogen so when COVID-19 attacks your system, the immune system doesn’t even know what’s hitting it,” said Dr Muruthi.
He added that Zooonsis was a huge global health threat. He however said the World Health Organisation (WHO) and partners have adopted a One Health Approach in a bid to find means of comprehensively dealing with human health, animal health and environmental health under one roof with the aim of reducing the impending Zoonotic hazard.
“The One Health approach stipulates why we should look at zoonosis as a wholesome problem. It’s not a wildlife disease issue nor a human disease and environmental issue alone but it must be looked at comprehensibly.”
Dr Muruthi also raised alarm over the unprecedented depletion of wildlife species due poaching and illegal wildlife trade which he also said was the major driver of zoonotic diseases spread. He added that human wildlife conflict can however be managed effectively.
In Zimbabwe, there have been increased incidences of human/wildlife conflict with a couple of human lives having been lost since beginning of the year from wildlife attacks. Since January, 2021 to date, 60 people have died from elephant and crocodile attacks while 40 others have suffered serious injuries that have left them with permanent disabilities.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe, Parks and Wildlife (ZIMPARKS) Spokesperson, Mr Tinashe Farawo said they have intensified joint patrols with neighboring and regional countries in a bid to reduce as well as curb poaching and illegal wildlife trade.
“You would appreciate that most of the boarders were man made. As national parks, we do a lot of joint patrols not only with our neighbors. Within the SADC region, we have about 16 trans-frontier conservation areas where we jointly patrol our boarders and of the 16, six are functional. We have the Kavango Zambezi which covers five countries namely Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Zambia.
