way of survival cross the zones among the Tropic of Cancer and Ecuador (Africa) and the Hindustan, remaining in the area of India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), the highly populated and conflicting areas of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo DR, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and the area of China and Indonesia (including Myanmar and Vietnam).
Naturally, and according to the scientific and technological level and means allowable for the control, when we talk about emerging diseases, are the US, UK, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland or China, the first countries detecting new outbreaks. When we talk of natural zoonoses, it affects to roughly 2,200 millions inhabitants, 1,000 millions of them in extreme poverty, which obtain its intakes of proteins (a third) and incomes (from 25% to 55% of earnings) from the livestock. Furthermore, an important percentage of livestock in these places suffer diseases which decrease the production roughly a 7−11% (trypanosomiasis, brucellosis, bacterial food-borne, Q-fever or leptospirosis) and some of them concerning also humans (as tuberculosis or cysticercosis).
(The main groups of livestock worldwide. All photographs by the author)
A feature of zoonoses is the intermittent occurrence of outbreaks, as it seems to be by following climate changes, droughts, floods, but other feature is the increasing of areas along the last 30 years, in parallel to change of average temperatures and the increased livestock density. Also the jumping to new species breaks the link with the original focus or specie: thus, some diseases today are “considered” only human diseases (influenza, malaria, HIV, dengue, measles). As a side note and topical issue, recently a study leaded by scientists from Illinois through a little community of Biaka tribe in Africa, seems to showing that this tribe living in forests near the apes has genes with resistance to infection and development of VIH -the Rhesus macaques were supposed to be the first source of infection, SADS, what provoked the VIH/AIDS-, probably inherited and carried into genes and likely acquired hundred of decades ago. The populations, before the appearing of other vaccines and the change in lifespan, may have died naturally.
Why is it staying in these wide areas? Because currently, the most important areas and populations affected, where are being affected, where this is a deep daily trouble, have not the support or help from very strong programs, donors or international policies, despite that could appear to be taking place. The pharmaceutical companies support publicly these diseases with barely an 8% of its budgets, in only the 15% of the implied areas. The public image instead shows a big effort that does not match the measurable reality on the ground.
As ever, the measure of things shows us the reality above the official reports. I must remember very clearly a study conducted by a team of the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, published by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in 2012. The comparing among the official data noted and the real cases has a very important and transcendent meaning, and with bigger scope: the fact of the difference between the real cases and the cases statistically noted, in some diseases show disparate figures in more than a million cases (as says the study and demonstrates), clearly saying that in areas where these diseases occur there is no actually surveillance. This is not new; a walk through these fields can be very instructive.
I must say now, against my desire, but following the common sense and the real need that the human chain of programs, efforts, staff and disbursements, allegedly applied and implemented in all these countries, actually is lost every day by the way, both financially and in time, in different places, always ending up where it should never go. Yes, the reports and image of the chain are showing year after year the same vision: things are getting best. Is this take the time, effort, knowledge and means?
If you, reader, you have had known of these programs, you do not need even a single explanation. You can get a rough idea about the world census by looking through the reports of FAO, here in the World Program for the Census of Agriculture. This is not an impediment for some of the countries involved have military budgets above $20,000 million. Actually, the real interest is beyond people's cattle, but in the land and mineral resources.
I say all this because, is not important but essential to understand the real road that those diseases develop. It is a matter of common health, for the animals and for us, the human. Only reckoning human deaths, we have 2,7-2,9 millions people which die yearly, as result of the 2,5 billion yearly cases of illness globally. Thus, the gastrointestinal diseases produce the main number (2,3 billion) worldwide, but a selected "team" catches to 120 million people (the dengue fever, cysticercosis, hepatitis E and Chagas) among 25 main zoonoses.
You can ask now: why his man does not write about wild animals? I will explain you now my way to talk and tell you all this: that is my way to say what is the true interest and goal of some humans: in front of just 5,000 last wild elephants here, 3,500 there, 8,000 bonobos there, 2,500 here, and so in all the cases, the real interest stays in the value of livestock in the market only where it has interest, of roughly $1,4-1,5 trillion, directly supporting 600 million people, but globally working 1,400 billion people. The meat (apart the dairy and other products) is the bigger line of business that uses extended resources as forages, water and space, and the carbon emissions are not the main worry that we should watch: being this last always a worry, it is bigger the pressure over crops and lands, and the detrimental effect of price's control in the market (and then over people). How can we say that there is some interest even for elephants and bonobos? There are none.
It is sure that, if you are living in the “north” sure you have on your table three meat dishes a week at least, ad your intake of proteins and other nutrients as sugars and fat, by this way is not only sure but completely excessive. The 600 millions that depend on livestock barely complete its needs, coming from livestock at 30-50%, not ever, sometimes losing its animals by some disease (20%), and never covering their minimum nutritional requirements. But we still think we have advanced, as never.
As you can see, we are talking again of invisible things, at least for common people. What is really sad to me is that in nine out of ten analyzes, we always ends up finding a kind of problems very evident (we will see it below), either in soil, food, air, water or any tissue: the residues of compounds that are the harmful footprint of treatments in animals to produce more with lesser costs. Anything that you cannot see, you think that does not exist, or it is inoffensive, or has not any effect. The worst circumstance I have seen is this one: the alimentary companies have managed to convince people that promote large production and distribution chains is equal to live better, when the reality is the contrary: it has turned out in less jobs, less small business, higher prices for less actual amount of product, less nutritive value, and bigger dependence in the more wide expression. And the recent 153 million tons of meat, worldwide produced in the later years, that means more than 50% of agricultural GDP. How many people could have been producing and living out of dependence from the restricted industrialized way?
And the former conditions that could have led us to become firstly farmers and later carnivorous, or perhaps upside down (we cannot be completely sure about), leaving the diet of fruits and herbs (droughts or extreme cold), somehow indicates us we are following a wrong direction in spite our ancient history that gave us a gold’s opportunity: a history which gave us to be more adaptable, evolve, to eat not only fruits but also meat, and the most important, the ability to adapt to more different conditions. And the conditions now are turning on, the numbers can say us that we should eat less meat and more vegetables, a clever decision as never before could have been, a balanced solution for a world that have … 7,000 today, but 9,000 millions inhabitants barely in 30-40 years (and this is like saying tomorrow).
And all this occurs because we already have the knowledge, and unfortunately also the business lobby that has never cared about this, or never will care in the slightest. I will do it, again, repeat the point: the question is the use, never the knowledge or
the tool. Maybe you would like reading an interesting story about the animals, meat and food. I hope you can do a rough idea of how many things are not seen, but we would need to take into account.
An unseen story within men and cattle: the prions.
That means talking of upper animals, and human induced changes produced in the "biological chain,” and afterward talk back about the bad called lower beings and other human induced changes, those than the next decades will become unthinkable challenges. What did happened with the called prions? What were they? Where they came from? And, the question lost in oblivion, how did they operated? I only hope this story could be enjoyable, refreshing and revealing for you.
As I have writing about zoonoses, I will start from upper animals, we selves, mentioning a zoonotic disease. The kuru disease was reported the first time on the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, developed via cannibalism as it was checked later. It is a degenerative neurological disorder that provokes tremors and pathologic bursts of laughter like very clear symptoms. A scientist Hungarian-American called Daniel Carleton