David Quammen’s latest essay in the New York Times is a moving plea to humanity, an appeal sparked by our tragic global experience with Covid-19, and an exhortation to listen to the “talk” of viruses seeping across the planet. : an exhortation that one would think is not necessary in a post-Covid world. But it is.
Quammen is perhaps the world’s most eloquent commentator on the ecology of disease, the branch of biology that deals with the exchange of parasites and pathogens between all life forms on Earth. His work has appeared in Time, The New Yorker, Harper’s and elsewhere. His National Geographic essay “How Viruses Shape Our World” is assigned reading in one of my college classes.
One of his earliest works, The Song of the Dodo, is a searching and subtle history of an ecological theory known as island biogeography. This book received the John Burroughs Medal and the New York Public Library/Helen Bernstein Award. It is one of my favorite books in the entire history of science.
However, possibly Quammen’s most intense investigation is documented in his magisterial book Spillover. It was there that Quammen began his in-depth study of zoonotic diseases and the scientists who study them. From there derives Mr. Quammen’s authority on the emerging pathogens that continue to threaten modern society.
So when David Quammen has something to say about zoonotic diseases, it’s wise to listen.
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His latest essay begins with the observation that this year alone, two marine mammals, a bottlenose dolphin in Florida and a porpoise in Sweden, were found dead and infected with a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. That’s how it is. It turns out that cetaceans can be infected with diseases that originate in birds.
These are just some of the latest examples where we have learned about the transmission of parasites between animal species. In fact, we have long known that some parasites (such as the rat lungworm that causes lung infections in many mammals) are generalists, while others are specialists. What confers the potential for interspecies transmission is undoubtedly complex and a matter of great importance to scientists currently studying the ecology of disease.
Quammen calls such observations of contagion from one species to another “viral talk,” an idea he attributes to American epidemiologist Don Burke.
In his essay, Quammen writes,
Usually these single infections hit a dead end, which is a good thing. But the “occasionally” part means it’s a repeating pattern, which is bad, or at least sinister. What this pattern indicates to the wary, like Dr. Burke, is that a certain virus “wants” to cross that gap between animal and human hosts, and spread widely.
Quammen’s concern is that we’re not hearing the chatter, at least not close enough.
I agree.
Perhaps we are not listening because the noise of electoral politics, the war in Ukraine and economic inflation drown out the talk. Surely there are some of us who are listening. Networks of diagnostic laboratories, such as the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System and the US National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System, do their best to hear the talk. But we currently lack the pervasive and well-resourced infrastructure for infectious disease intelligence to truly monitor the exchange of parasites and pathogens between animal species, and between non-human animals and ourselves. Listening to viral chatter will require a more sensitive microphone.
Source: news.google.com