We know that the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, originated in bats, just like the Country Email List initial SARS of 1992-1993. A quarter of all mammals are bats – some 1,500 species – and they harbor an incredible variety of viruses, including hundreds of coronaviruses, that have the potential Country Email List to make the jump to humans, either directly or through a wild animal that acts as an intermediary. The chain of transmission of the current virus is not known and, in fact, may never be known, but the constant expansion of crops and farms in China's wild areas is probably a key factor, along with the cultural Country Email List tradition of consuming bats and animals.
Exotic. In the case of new flus – which remain an imminent risk – the exponential Country Email List growth of industrial pig and chicken production in Southwest Asia and elsewhere has greatly amplified this pandemic threat. Pigs, which can be hosts to double infection of avian and human flu strains, Country Email List Country Email Listare key biological reactors, as genome segments from two viruses can sometimes recombine to create monstrous hybrids. The poultry industries, for their part, act as viral accelerators for the spread of these new strains. On a global Country Email List scale, deforestation is the hammer blow that breaks down the walls between wild nature and its huge reservoirs of viruses.
On the one hand, and overcrowded human cities on the other. An example cited in Country Email List my book is the case of the coastal region of West Africa, the most rapidly urbanizing area on the planet. Traditionally, villages and towns relied on fish as the main source of protein. But starting in the Country Email List 1980s, industrial fleets in Europe and Japan harvested roughly half the fish in the Gulf of Guinea. Local fishermen lost their livelihoods and fish prices soared in urban markets. Simultaneously, Country Email List multinational logging companies were hacking their way with chainsaws through the tropical forests of the Congo, Gabon and Cameroon.