Wildlife And Disease Spreading In India: A Review
In a country that holds close to 1/6th of the entire global human population, interactions between wildlife and people in India – and the potential for spreading disease through this contact – is an important concern. This study gathers together a large collection of published literature on the spread of diseases in India that are carried by animals and given to humans (“zoonotic diseases”). The paper identifies various species that spread diseases, and underscores the importance of monitoring zoonotic diseases across the country.
India is an enormous country that holds huge human and animal populations. With over 500 wildlife sanctuaries, 102 national parks, 47 conservation reserves, and four community reserves, as well as a Wildlife Protection Act stating that it is illegal to kill any wild animal (though many people still hunt), the protection of animals is serious business. Though the vast populations also mean that animals are often living in close proximity to people. “From a zoonotic disease perspective,” the authors of this study note, “many important wildlife species occur in abundance in India. Such animals include wild boar, non human primates, rodents, wild aquatic and terrestrial birds, canids and felids, bovids, vultures, owls, and reptiles.” With evidence in literature that “seems to indicate the occurrence of zoonotic diseases such as rabies at the domestic and wild interface since ancient times,” the problem is not new.
For this study, researchers compiled a wealth of published literature on the spread of different zoonotic diseases, and discovered some of the main causes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a large proportion of the problems are related to the proximity of animals to humans caused by increasing human activity. For example, “deforestation” and “habitat sharing” are major concerns, and this is underlined by the fact that “India has a huge human population living close to the forest with their livelihoods critically linked to the forest ecosystem.” The researchers note that “there are around 173,000 villages located in and around forests,” and “the forest dependent population in India has been estimated to be from 275 million.” This is a staggering number, and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that “some animals such as cows and monkeys are regarded as sacred in India,” and so contact between them and humans is not as tightly controlled. The authors say that “monkeys present unique risks for humans in India,” and that “this is a serious issue as these conflicts could result in transmission of many important zoonotic diseases including Herpes B virus infections and rabies.” Additionally, though killing wildlife is illegal in India, many people do still illegally kill and consume wild animals, leading to various zoonotic outbreaks.
Interestingly, all of the major factors influencing the spread of zoonotic diseases, such as “climate change, deforestation, expanding human population and agricultural activities, and livestock revolution” are problems that are largely controlled and shaped by human activity. Indeed, the authors’ list of the “important challenges” in controlling zoonotic diseases is made up entirely of problems that humans cause: “the presence and dependence of large human populations in forests and on forest land, encroachment of stray animals such as dogs and cattle on wildlife habitat, overlapping and shared habitats of humans, livestock and wildlife, and the general lack of appreciation regarding occurrence and dynamics of zoonotic pathogens.” So the problem caused by humans needs to be solved by us too. The researchers assert that “a planned multidisciplinary one-world one-health approach including at the veterinary/medical and at the wildlife-livestock/human interface is necessary for a coordinated and effective national strategy.”