The world of Tzu Chi June 2020 (Vol.123)

A documentary on Covid-19 concluded with the following observation: “The virus, if it is capable of thought, should be taught a lesson. If the goal of a virus is to multiply, then it has no reason to cause lethal harm to mankind. When a viral disease evolves into a pandemic, mankind will go to great lengths to defeat the virus.” As we contemplate the documentary’s assertion, we are confronted with a question worth pondering: Is the virus to be blamed for attacking mankind, or are humans to blame for testing the limits of nature? Viruses are commonly found in the periphery of tropical rainforests, patches of newly developed land inhabited by human populations who sustain themselves by hunting and gathering produce. The livestock industry flourished in the Southeast Asian region, giving rise to industrial farms that housed animals reared for consumption. In 1999, the Nipah virus outbreak gripped the nation. Local andAustralian scientists later confirmed that the virus resided in bats as the original host and hypothesized that the virus was transmitted through the fruits growing on the fruit trees planted near most pig farms. The infected pigs were suspected to have contracted the virus by consuming fruits that bats had taken a bite of, exposing the humans who handled them to the virus. The bottomless pit of human desire and greed has led to excessive exploitation of Forgotten lessons from history Are animals the main culprit of viral outbreaks? Or is human intervention in nature the harbinger of our own downfall? natural resources, which, in turn, intensified interactions between humans and wildlife to an overbearing extent, transgressing the established boundaries between mankind and nature. The dense populations of livestock and poultry in the animal farming industry have elevated the risk of animal-borne viruses being transmitted to an intermediary host and eventually exposing humans to the viruses. The viruses then spread easily among the global human population in our highly interconnected and mobile world. The second lives of viruses In 2016, the nomadic people of Siberia, Russia contracted a peculiar disease. Following the death of a young boy and over 20 million reindeer, local officials believed that the disease originated in the carcass of a reindeer that had died 75 years ago. Rising temperatures as a result of the growing severity of global warming had melted the ice that has formed over the carcass, which had been infected with the Bacillus anthracis bacteria – an agent of the anthrax disease – exposing other organisms to the bacteria and causing a resurgence of the disease. An article by the BBC revealed that in 2014, researchers in France extracted a virus strain that had been sealed in a permafrost layer for 300 centuries. The virus was reactivated after undergoing a heating process in the laboratory. The researchers warned of the possibility of eature 2020 • 06 26