Deforestation in West Africa helped spread Ebola
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could have been avoided if countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea-Conakry had managed their forests better. In fact, the risk of the disease's growth was expected in a decade, according to The Guardian, which explains why.In the last decade, tropical forests of this region, the natural habitat of fruit bats, have been devastated: Guinea-Conakry lost 80% of its forests, while Liberia sold the rights of deforestation for half of its forests. On the other hand, Sierra Leone will be completely deforested in the coming years.It is known that the fruit bat houses the Ebola virus and, when their home â€" the forest â€" is decimated, he focuses on what's left of this habitat. At the same time, the business of mining companies became one of the major employers in the region â€" are mainly people who travel regularly within the territory of the bats to enter the mines. Is made the explosive cocktail for the growth of the disease.Fruit bats carrying the Ebola virus, but usually don't die from it. That is, the virus can easily have migrated from West Africa to the central part of the continent of same outside the birds spread West Nile virus in North America: through migration.And although bats have long been in the West African communities, there are other routes of transmission beyond the power of indigenous peoples. According to The Guardian, it is possible that the two-year-old boy infected in Guinea-Conakry, believed to have been the first case of Ebola virus, may have eaten contaminated by fruit bats. This form of transmission justifies the fact that the disease has reached the populations of gorillas."There is no public health without environmental health," says the Guardian. "Deforestation did not cause the epidemic of Ebola, but ' built '," concluded the newspaper.Foto: shellac / Creative Commons
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