Spring 2020
Expectations were high at the start of 2020. It started out full of promise, but now less than halfway through the year, there are currently more than 400,000 cases worldwide – in almost every country of the world – from the new corona virus pandemic. The disease now named Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. At the end of March 2020 there are almost 415,000 cases and almost 20,000 deaths worldwide.
What is the cause of this tragedy of biblical proportions? It was first thought to have originated in a laboratory. Now it is now believed to have started in a wild animal market. The virus has evolved to its current pathogenic state by transmission from its non-human host to humans. Previous coronavirus outbreaks have emerged from humans contracting the virus after exposure to infected animals. Corona virus 2019 (Covid-19), as well as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), “Swine Flu”, avian influenza viruses (H5N1, H9N2, and H6N1 from poultry) and other epidemics are the result of Speciesism.
Animal-to-Human Diseases Kill 2.2 Million People Each Year. Epidemics are the direct result of speciesism – the abuse of other species for the benefit of the human species.
The current outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), continues to spread. In January, the World Health Organization defined the outbreak of COVID-19 as an international public health emergency of international concern. Another concern is the H5N1 virus infection which has proven fatal for chickens (and sometimes other poultry) as well as for human beings. With poultry and eggs now the major source of meat protein worldwide, this fact has implications for food supply and international trade. It also raises the possibility that human beings and chickens can be cross-infected, and in the absence of tight biosecurity, the virus potentially spreading in pandemic mode.
Currently in the world today, the non-human population outnumbers human population by literally billions. This is not because of wild animal populations – species extinction and habitat destruction are causing these individuals to quickly disappear. It is the individuals raised in the horrific conditions that breed disease and suffering – animals raised and murdered for human food. Under these circumstances, pathogens appear which threaten the lives, health, and incomes of the worldwide human population who eat these individuals, and their eggs, and drink their milk.
About 60 percent of all human diseases and 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.
This includes HIV which ignited the AIDS epidemic, and coronavirus responsible for SARS, and now COVID – 19. According to researchers. most human infections with zoonoses come from livestock, including pigs, chickens, cattle, goats, sheep and camels. Zoonoses from the livestock sector, animals raised for human food, cause the most human deaths.
Researchers have found 13 so-called zoonoses are responsible for 2.2 million human deaths every year.
These are: zoonotic gastrointestinal disease; leptospirosis; cysticercosis; zoonotic tuberculosis (TB); rabies; leishmaniasis; brucellosis; echinococcosis; toxoplasmosis; Q fever; zoonotic trypanosomiasis; hepatitis E; and anthrax. Other pandemic diseases resulting from species transmission include: Coronaviruses – a large family of viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a viral respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
Africa will suffer most with COVID-19.
Given the infectious potential of the disease, it will undermine malaria control efforts. As of March 2020, malaria-endemic regions in Africa have reported a few imported COVID-19 cases in Nigeria, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are additional complications for malaria-endemic regions from a novel infectious disease outbreak. The 2014–16 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West African malaria-endemic countries, including Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, led to a public health emergency and disrupted malaria control efforts. More alarmingly, it was estimated that there were about 7,000 additional malaria associated deaths among children younger than 5 years in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone due to the Ebola outbreak. It is even more difficult for malaria endemic regions when faced with the threat of a novel infectious disease outbreak.
Many livestock infected with zoonoses are in low income nations. A large percentage show signs of brucellosis, trypanosomiasis, zoonotic tuberculosis, cysticercosis, leptospirosis, leishmaniasis, echinococcosis, toxoplasmosis, hepatitis E, and anthrax, as well as signs of current or past infection with bacterial food-borne diseases that cause food contamination. Worldwide 12 percent of animals have recent or current infections with brucellosis, 10 percent of livestock in Africa are infected with trypanosomiasis, 7 percent of livestock are currently infected with TB, 17 percent of smallholder pigs show signs of current infection with cysticercosis, 26 percent of livestock show signs of current or past infection with leptospirosis, 25 percent of livestock show signs of current or past infection with Q fever.
According to the United Nations World Health Organization the greatest threat to international health security is outbreaks of epidemic diseases. Factors fueling these outbreaks is the way food is produced and traded, and the way antibiotics are used and misused. Antibiotics used on humans to treat diseases of a zoonotic nature result in antibiotic resistance. According to the United States Center for Disease Control, there are an estimated 2 million drug-resistant infections that occur in the United States alone each year causing 23,000 human deaths. The billions of unjustly incarcerated and ultimately executed individuals raised for food are routinely given antibiotics in their food and water to stimulate growth, while simultaneously enabling them to survive in the disease-ridden horrific conditions on factory farms.
Accompanying the mortality and morbidity of pandemic incidents is the devastating economic loss to individuals and businesses across the planet. With people staying home to avoid contracting the disease, many businesses are experiencing loss, and individuals who do not go to work experience loss of pay. Investors feel the loss in the stock markets due to declining productivity. Just as in the worldwide phenomenon of hoarding toilet paper, some individuals are motivated to have much while leaving nothing for others. One species dominating all other species cannot exist without precipitating catastrophic pandemic events.
The problem is Speciesism, and the solution is Vegan.
References: The Lancet and Live Science
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