The next pandemic? With the numbers of cases and deaths from Covid-19 still — after almost eight months — rising around the world, it’s difficult to focus attention on preventing the next one. Yet, it is widely predicted to happen so maybe this is exactly the time — while people are living through the devastation being wreaked on families, economies and human societies — to start talking about ways to avoid a repeat.
Two recently released reports advise we move away from exploiting animals to prevent the next pandemic. The first, from the United Nations Environment Program, “Preventing the Next Pandemic — Zoonotic Diseases and How to Break the Chain of Transmission”, says we need to unite human, animal and environmental health. The report identified seven trends driving the increase in the emergence of zoonotic diseases (those that jump the species barrier from animals to humans), including the increased demand for animal protein, a rise in intense and unsustainable farming, the increase in the use and exploitation of wildlife, and the climate crisis.
“The primary risks for future spillover of zoonotic diseases are deforestation of tropical environments and large scale industrial farming of animals, specifically pigs and chickens at high density,” disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie of Emory University, told The Guardian. “We are at a crisis point. If we don’t radically change our attitude towards the natural world, things are going to get much, much worse. What we are experiencing now will seem mild by comparison.”
The report identifies a “One Health” approach which unites public health, veterinary and environmental experts as an optimal method for preventing and responding to zoonotic disease outbreaks and pandemics. Recommendations include: strengthening the monitoring and regulation of practices associated with zoonotic diseases including food systems; incentivizing sustainable land management practices and developing alternatives for food security and livelihoods that don’t rely on habitat and diversity destruction; and, supporting the sustainable co-existence of agriculture and wildlife.
Another report, “Food and Pandemics” from Germany-based ProVeg International says, “using animals for food is the most risky human behaviour in relation to pandemics.” Our food choices create the conditions for zoonotic pandemics through: the destruction of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity (driven largely by animal agriculture); the use of wild animals for food; and, the use of intensively farmed animals for food.
“Transforming the global food system by replacing animal-based protein with plant-based and cultured alternatives provides a multiproblem solution — preventing not only future pandemics but also helping to mitigate parallel crises such as climate change, world hunger and antibiotic resistance,” the report said.