Preserving Wild Animal Populations From Extinction

"[Reporting the results of four visits to Mong La] the wildlife trafficking capital of the world [the writers] observed 42 bags of scales, 32 whole skins, 15 fetuses or pangolin parts in wine, and 27 whole pangolins for sale."
Global Ecology and Conservation

"If we heed the warning not only will we protect human life but we could actually save species like pangolins."
Peter Kights, CEO, WildAid

"The problem is not the animals, it's that we get in contact with them."
Sara Platto, professor, animal behaviour, Jianghan University, Wuhan

"If the illegal animal trade was at the root of this outbreak, it is going to be really difficult to trace, and I suspect most of the evidence is gone already – destroyed or spread out across the black market." 
"People aren't going to want to talk, because of the consequences [of the illegal trade and consequent penalties." 
Texas A&M University virologist Benjamin Neuman

Wildlife such as the pangolin, a scaly ant-eating mammal, could be the b eneficiaries of the recent coronavirus outbreak, which is believed to have begun with the consumption of wild meats.  Getty Images

Pangolin meat, characterized as "dark with a sticky, stringy texture" is a sought-after dinner table delicacy in some areas of the world. There are claims that pangolin scales which cover the body of the small creatures -- keratin, like human fingernails, and rhinoceros horns are useful in treating a wide range of ailments, from infertility to rheumatoid arthritis making them a sought-after ingredient in traditional medicine and folk remedies.

It is difficult to change cultures, all the more so when they have the staying power and influence of tradition. That the South China Morning Post reported in 2018: "There is no scientific evidence showing that pangolin scales are effective as a treatment" may appeal to rational intelligence is expected, but at the same time there is nothing either rational or intelligent in beliefs based on faith in tradition.

Two continents, Africa and Asia, play host to eight species of pangolin, all known to be vulnerable or critically endangered. Despite being considered a protected species through international trade law, a million of their number has been trafficked in the past decade, according to the World Wildlife Fund. A short while ago, 9,500 kilograms of pangolin scales were seized by officials from shipping containers in Nigeria, representing a likely 20,000 animals taken from the wild.

A trade ban has been in place since 2017, and shipments such as that violate the ban, an occurrence that is becoming more common, representing organized criminal networks expanding their business from ivory to pangolins. Scientists, in view of the current epidemic of COVID-19 and the new and growing threat of zoonotics -- viruses leaping from wild animals to humans -- suspect pangolins may have been the source of the new coronavirus.

Nature recently reported "So far, the closest match to the human coronavirus has been found in a bat in China's Yunnan province". The quote above from the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, represents a finding by researchers Vincent Nijman, Ming Xia Zhang and Chris Shepherd when they took stock of what was popularly for sale at the Mong La wildlife market, located on the border of southwestern China and Shan State in Myanmar where pangolin wine is seen for sale.

The researchers had estimated that pangolin products were valued at close to a million a year sold in Myanmar, but fetched much higher prices once the forbidden goods crossed into China "where prices of pangolins and their parts have risen considerably over the last decade". The World Wildlife Fund estimates the value of wild species trafficking as a whole to be roughly $20 million in annual value.

The timid, scaly pangolin is thought to be among the most highly poached mammals in the world. The animal had been implicated in the coronavirus outbreak earlier in the month by researchers at the South China Agricultural University. According to the experts there, pangolins appear to be the intermediary in the virus jump to humans, but "the mystery is far from solved", reported Nature.

"I do think the government has seen the toll it takes on [the] national economy and society is much bigger than the benefit that wild-eating business rings", observed Jeff He, China director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. In a move to halt the spread of the coronavirus, officials in China have issued an order to ban all consumption of wild animal meat, inclusive of pangolins, peacocks, civets, turtles and badgers.

Should such an order be brought into permanent legislation, after the emergency fears of viral contamination leading to COVID-19 infection, it would repesent a great leap forward for the preservation of animal species now threatened with extinction resulting from the voracious appetite in China for exotic animal species, but it would require a commitment on the part of the government to expunge this particular tradition from its cuisine and pharmacological culture.

Pangolins, the most trafficked mammal in the world after humans, could be the cause of the coronavirus outbreak.

(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Forewarned Is Forearmed

"Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease."
World Health Organization bulletin alert

"History tells us that it is likely the next big outbreak will be something we have not seen before."
"It may seem strange to be adding an 'X' but the point is to make sure we prepare and plan flexibly in terms of vaccines and diagnostic tests."
"We want to see 'plug and play' platforms developed that will work for any, for a wide number of diseases; systems that will allow us to create countermeasures at speed."
"It is vital that we are aware and prepare. It is probably the greatest risk [unpreparedness]."
John-Arne Rottingen, chief executive, Research Council of Norway/ scientific adviser to WHO committee

It sounds half sinister, half ultra-dramatic science fiction to name an unknown, in-the-future potential of a disease that will trigger a global pandemic, 'Disease X'. But since it is an unknown and taking into consideration all the previously unknown pathogens that nature has developed which have run their destructive course through swaths of helpless humanity succumbing to the deadly and often gruesome effects of such diseases that have hitherto been unleashed, it isn't that big a stretch into the realm of scare-mongering, after all.

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease
Biopsy of the tonsil in variant CJD. Prion protein immunostaining.

How about the dread emergence of prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease) as a horrible way to die? Zoonotics such as these and many, many more, of which Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDs) was yet another that ran rampant through humanity, and still does, however diminished its current role as a dread disease inflicting terror and death in equal measure on vulnerable populations.

Campylobacter, E.coli, Salmonellosis, other zoonotics derived from farm animals infecting humans by crossing the species barrier. Consider these details, in addition:

• Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which you can get from a tick bite.
• West Nile virus, which you can get from a mosquito bite.
• Dengue, malaria, and chikungunya, which you can get if you travel to areas where these diseases are common, such as the Caribbean, and are bitten by an infected mosquito.
• Salmonella infection, which you can get after handling a baby chick, chicken, duck, turtle, or snake.
• E. coli infection, which you can catch if you touch areas in a petting zoo or animal exhibit where some of the animals are infected. You can also catch E. coli infection if you work at a dairy because cows can have E. coli germs on their udders.

 It is the function of the World Health Organization, an outreach arm of the United Nations, to alert scientists and health workers globally when any threatening new, and potentially deadly pathogen comes on the scene; hence a forecast into the future of the possible likelihood of a deadly disease sweeping across the globe; for the moment, named Disease X. The WHO takes its function of monitoring and safeguarding world health seriously.

And annually a high level meeting is convened calling together senior scientists where discussion of serious diseases posing the risk of initiating a major international public health emergency finds its venue. There are many diseases that have alarmed world health authorities in the past, distinguishing their presence as a threat to human survival; killers such as Lassa fever, sweeping Nigeria, and Ebola which succeeded in killing over 11,000 people in an epidemic that swept West Africa between 2013 and 2015 before a successful vaccine was found.

Handout photo shows technician preparing specimens from a master H1N1 virus sample for the pre-production of vaccine at laboratory in Dresden Credit: Ho New /Reuters

Gene editing representing a major advance in medical science through the manipulation or creation of new viruses equates with the possibility of an accidental emergence of a new, dread virus which could result in an horrendous impact on the world, perhaps a Disease X. Rogue scientists working hand-in-glove with an outlier nation or renegade group could conceive of a laboratory produced pathogen of immense killing proportions as a deliberate act of terror.

But as far as Dr. Rottingen is concerned, it appears to him more likely that Disease X could result as one of those natural phenomenona in the creation of yet another zoonotic disease leaping from animals to humans, progressively spreading and becoming an epidemic or pandemic much as H1N1 swine flu virus threatened in 2009. HIV is believed to have originated in chimpanzees before leaping to humans, killing 35 million people worldwide in the last forty years.

Nowa Paye, 9, is taken to an ambulance after showing signs of the Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve in 2014 Credit: AP/Jerome Delay

Watch list | Diseases threatening a public health emergency*

• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF)
• Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus disease
• Lassa fever
• Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
• Nipah and henipaviral diseases
• Rift Valley fever (RVF)
• Zika
• Disease X

*Diseases posing significant risk of an international public health emergency for which there is no, or insufficient, countermeasures. Source: World Health Organization (WHO), 2018