LettersCovid-19 and bird flu outbreaks should prompt a rethink of factory farming
- Industrial farming and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources create the ideal scenario for disease outbreaks
- The animal industry should be shrunk and better regulated, and we also need to rethink our habits related to meat consumption
Much of the academic literature and healthcare guidelines published about Covid-19 focuses on how to handle the public health crisis and mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. More attention, however, should be paid to understanding the root causes of the coronavirus and other zoonoses – infectious diseases that can jump from animals to humans.
Epidemics caused by infectious diseases that originated from animals have plagued us throughout history. An “animal-human interface” – direct or indirect contact of humans with animals and their bodily fluids – is required for such cross-species transmission.
The animal-human interface has intensified in the last few decades due to several anthropogenic reasons. Intensified farming and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources create the ideal scenario for disease outbreaks.
In January, the French Ministry of Agriculture ordered the killing of millions of chickens, ducks and other poultry to halt the spread of the highly contagious H5N1 strain of bird flu which was first detected in November. By April, 13 million birds had been slaughtered. In the Netherlands, which also reported bird flu outbreaks, hundreds of thousands of birds have been killed.
Intensive factory farming is likely to have contributed to the spread of avian flu that Europe is struggling with. Wild birds may carry low-pathogenic variants, but the intensive farming environment facilitates the spread of viruses, which may then mutate into serious variants.