NEW DELHI: While India is grappling with the coronavirus, a study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) suggests that with the destruction of natural habitats, there are enhanced chances of clashes for territory between animals and humans, leading to more frequent opportunities for a cross-species spill over leading to more zoonotic diseases.
A study done by Dr. Subhradip Karmakar, Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at AIIMS along with Dr Ruby Dhar from same institute suggests that the consumption of wild animals for food or medicinal purposes, puts creatures like bats in close contact with other animals and people.
“What makes COVID19 more lethal is that it came too sudden and left us completely baffled and unprepared. This recent outbreak and possibly many more to come are mostly due to too much human intervention into nature. Human-induced changes and fiddling with natural habitats may have promoted viral host switching from animals to humans,” said the study.
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“Coronavirus, like the SARS virus, typically causes zoonotic infections, being transmitted from animals to humans. One way that these viruses are believed to be crossing species barrier too often and invading into the human population is when they are consumed as part of exotic foods, like what happened in Wuhan, China,” it added.
The study explains why COVID-19, a virus known to reside in animals (bats, pangolin) and not infect humans decided to leave its animal host and jump into a human.“Host switching (also called spill over) is no easy task and sometimes could take decades to happen. It perhaps needs the right amount of everything -- host, opportunity, survival conditions, and correct genetic mutations in the first place in the virus,” the study mentioned.