Zoonotic ailments: Meat we eat a trigger for fear?

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Malayali penchant for meat — pink or white — stays unsatiated and the overdependence on animal protein has been hovering yearly, with consumption reaching document ranges.

So is the case with the rising zoonotic illness dangers related to the expansion of animal agriculture, which is a critical trigger for concern.  Though the state has not but discovered the  level of origin of current Nipah incidence or avian influenza, whose outbreak happens in home poultry flocks within the state at common intervals, the current shift from primarily cereal staples to a extra meat-centred animal agriculture, which is extra economical, will increase danger elements for the emergence of varied zoonotic ailments in Kerala than every other place.

According to specialists, intensively caged animal rearing performs a crucial function as intermediate hosts by bringing animal viruses, which can usually have little contact with different hosts, into shut contact with individuals. In the previous, animals or birds had been raised in yard farms the place the transmission of pathogens was comparatively low.

But the industrialisation of animal agriculture, the place hundreds of animals are confined to crammed enclosures or bringing a number of hundred truck a great deal of cattle flouting all norms, posesa a serious risk as these practices create a state of affairs the place viruses or micro organism move serially by means of many hosts, doubtlessly producing novel viral strains with the power to contaminate individuals, say specialists.

They have additionally identified the transition of low pathogenic avian influenza to extremely pathogenic avian influenza by means of mutations. And the probabilities of such mutations are very excessive in business animal rearing websites or unscientific cattle actions involving hundreds of  confined animals.

Vijaya Kumar, former joint commissioner, Health (livestock), on the Centre, advised TNIE, “There are risks associated with the commercial rearing of animals or birds. But we cannot imagine a scenario without giving emphasis to animal agriculture or animal protein. When traditional agriculture suffered huge losses, it was the profitable animal husbandry that supported the farmers amid the crashes. There are three major migratory pathways in India where we cannot do anything to check the arrival of migratory birds.”“The only solution is to keep up the strict vigil and ensure close surveillance apart from adopting scientific practices in animal agriculture. Kerala is capable of implementing such enforcement measures more strictly than any other state,” he added.

Risk at hand

As a part of the meat business, pigs, broiler hen, egg-laying  hens and geese are reared intensively in cages, whereas livestock are nonetheless stored largely within the open Keeping massive variety of animals in restricted areas poses a excessive danger of improvement of zoonotic pathogens with the potential to contaminate individuals Farms with extra animals have a doubtlessly excessive viral loadRearing of animals in cages performs a vital function in transmission of zoonotic viruses, and will increase probabilities of transmission amongst each other and peopleThrough correct vigil and surveillance, we are able to reduce the severity of virus transmission. But, it’s not doable to get rid of epidemics absolutely A serious hyperlink between animal farming and new viral pathogens is the contact with wildlifeIn current years, avian influenza or chicken flu (H5N1 pressure) outbreaks have been reported in Kerala in 2014, 2020 and 2021. An H5N8 outbreak was reported at Kuttanad in Alappuzha in 2016 Nipah outbreak was reported in Kozhikode in 2018, in Ernakulam in 2019 and Kozhikode in 2021.

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