Status: 07/23/2022 06:36 a.m
Covid19, monkeypox, Marburg fever: Zoonotic infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa are spreading in Africa. An alarm signal – but the WHO is working on a counter-strategy.
“One in three cases in which African health authorities have confirmed an outbreak in recent years was a zoonotic disease,” says WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, warning: “This is a real threat for Africa .” Zoonoses can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa.
The continent has learned a lot about fighting serious infectious diseases, especially from Ebola – and is aware of the danger. After two men in southern Ghana died of Marburg fever at the end of June, 90 contacts were examined immediately. The result was that they had not been infected.
The disease is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, and symptoms include diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting. According to the WHO, the mortality rate is up to 88 percent, and there are no approved vaccines. The carrier is probably a bat species.
Great vigilance
The sensitivity on the continent is great. “Besides Covid19, we are currently working on 11 other public health threats,” said Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, executive director of the African Contagious Diseases Agency (CDC).
One of them surfaced in Tanzania last week. The mysterious case has since turned out to be leptospirosis, a bacterial disease transmitted by rodents. In extreme cases, it can attack internal organs and be fatal. It is not only in Africa that people get sick, there are also cases in Germany, for example.
Did the coronavirus spread to humans at the Wuhan wildlife market? China denies this thesis to this day.
Image: AFP
Vaccines are rare
While there is no causal therapy for Marburg patients, vaccinations against Ebola and monkeypox are now possible. The problem: The vaccines are rare, in the struggle with the rich North Africa is often at a disadvantage – Covid19 is the best example.
“More than 60 percent of all infectious diseases and more than 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases worldwide are caused by pathogens that humans share with wild animals or domestic animals,” says WHO expert Moeti. Africa plays a special role here. Humans and – as possible disease carriers – wild animals moved closer and closer together.
Reasons are the population growth on the continent, the increasing mobility of people and the search for food resources, including through hunting. According to WHO fears, Africa could “become the epicenter of emerging infectious diseases”.
“Buffer zones” disappear
The UN Environment Program had already warned in 2016, three years before Covid19, that zoonoses were rapidly on the rise. Factory farming, raw material extraction, forest felling: Humans tear down “traditional buffer zones” to the world of little or still unknown pathogens themselves.
To get the situation under control, the new magic word is “One Health”. In June, the African Union set up a working group with experts from various fields. Humans, animals and plants should be understood as part of the same habitat that needs to be protected and defended against diseases.
The WHO and other organizations have long relied on the “One Health” approach. If the struggle for global health is successful, it will be reflected in figures over the next few years: a drop in the number of zoonotic disease outbreaks. But the trend is still radically different.