A virus, the tiniest of biological entities, has the apex predator of this planet – Homo sapiens – in its grip. In one sense, that’s something most of us never imagined could happen. In another sense, many scientists have been predicting and fearing this very scenario for a long time.
This is not a time for pointing fingers; it is a time to work together constructively. And yet, amidst optimizing our health care and trying to prevent our economy from plummeting, we also need to identify the causes and risk factors involved in this pandemic.
Zoonotic diseases
The corona virus is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it was transmitted between animals and humans. These diseases are gaining traction worldwide, with three out of four new infection diseases being zoonoses (1). While it is impossible to entirely protect ourselves against them, we can certainly decrease the risk of new ones emerging and spreading. How often a virus crosses the species border between animals and humans is to a significant extent within our control..
Bats, pangolins and other wildlife
While we don’t yet know which exact animals transferred the COVID-19 virus to humans – scientists are looking in the direction of bats and pangolins – it is clear that China’s wildlife industry is at the heart of the matter. Very probably the virus was first spread via a so-called “wet market” in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Wet markets are open air markets where live animals are taken out of their cages to be killed right in front of the customer (if you google “Huanan market”, you’ll get the picture). Because of the presence of many different animal species, and their respective blood, excrement and entrails, those places are potential breeding grounds for viruses. They can mutate very quickly there, until they have adapted to also thrive inside human bodies.
Bush meat
The Chinese government briefly closed these wet markets after having identified them as the source of the 2003 SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome) pandemic – which originated in civet cats, sold at such markets – only for them to reopen later. While it seems that the Chinese have now enacted a permanent ban on the consumption of wild animals (2), the problem doesn’t stop there, and isn’t geographically limited to China. Wild animals are traded worldwide. Brussels, for instance, seems to be a hub for the import and distribution of so-called “bushmeat”. Apparently it is quite easy to buy meat from endangered species in certain shops in Belgium’s capital (3). Bushmeat – or the hunt and consumption of apes in West-Africa, is believed to also be at the source of the HIV pandemic, which presently has infected about forty million people worldwide (4).
Animal contact
The problem, though, is even bigger than that. Apart from hunting and trapping animals, also the contact between animals and humans in animal agriculture, the killing of animals in, and even the consumption of animals can be risky business. MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) is believed to have been transmitted through the consumption of camel meat and camel milk. The origins of Ebola seem to lie in people eating bats. And Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is a neurodegenerative disease of cattle that can be transmitted to humans through beef consumption.
Intensive animal agriculture
Over the last five decades or so, the domestication of “food animals” has taken more intensive forms in the shape of so-called CAFOs or confined animal feeding operations, also known as factory farms. In these places large amounts of animals are packed together, stress levels are high and hygiene is often insufficient. As such, factory farms are good places for zoonotic diseases to take off (5).
The H1N1 epidemic (also known as swine flu and very briefly as Mexican flu) that led to an estimated number of 150.000 to 600.000 human fatalities in 2009 – 2010, probably emerged from a pig farm in North Carolina (6). A little further back, the H5N1 bird flu in 1997 came from chicken farms in China (7). The biggest pandemic in recent history, the so-called Spanish flu in 1918, cost the lives of tens of millions of people probably after a virus went from wild birds to farmed birds to humans (8). Today, we can find outbreaks of animal diseases at about any time, in several places in the world. Presently, for instance, the H5N8 bird flu is hitting chicken farms in Europe, China and India. This virus hasn’t made the jump to humans yet, but that may be only a matter of time.
Risk factors
Already in a report of 2004, the WHO warned that one factor contributing to increased risk of pandemics was the increased demand for animal protein (9). Decreasing the amount of animals we raise for food and lowering our consumption of animal products could – apart from many other advantages for health and the environment – significantly lower the risk of new pandemics. For different reasons, more and more people are wondering whether we will eat meat in the future. And while a world without animal-derived foods may still seem like a total fantasy to many, the quickly increasing interest of big food companies in plant-based alternatives makes a structural change in our thinking and behavior ever more obtainable and likely.
Cultivated meat
Alternatives to livestock exploitation and the associated societal risk are on the rise: Apart from plant-based meat alternatives (e.g. soy, wheat or pea-based burgers), we are today also seeing rapid progress in the field of cultivated meat. Cultivated meat is based on a technology borrowed from the field of cell based therapy and regenerative medicine. Cells of the target species (i.e. beef, pork, chicken etc.) are taken from a live animal through a harmless biopsy or are extracted once from an embryo. Cultivated in vitro through a growth medium and scaled up to commercially viable volume using advanced bioprocesses and infrastructure, the amount of cells increases from one to millions, depending on their proliferative capacity.
Thus, a food product that is identical to livestock meat in taste and in composition on the cellular level can be created. An alternative protein source for flexitarians who do not want to compromise on taste, but without any slaughter involved.
Apart from the obvious animal welfare advantages and possible advantages in terms of sustainability (less land, water and energy would be required in its production), cultivated meat may also be a much safer way to consume animal tissue than the traditional one. Cells are derived from a stable and virus-free genome. The cells can be cultivated in a closed environment which minimizes the transmission of zoonotic diseases. Peace of Meat, for example, produces cultivated animal fat from non-genetically modified avian embryonic stem cells. One cell only has the ability to reproduce continuously in aseptic and virus-controlled environments.
Another advantage is that cultured meat can be produced locally, collaborating with local governments and incentivizing the local economy. Additionally, cultured meat production can be customized to local demand, even compensating for specific nutritional deficiencies. New jobs would be created and skilled workers could transfer their knowledge and experience to factories in other areas. Local farmers could get involved, embracing cultured meat technology as part of their business model. Meat import costs would go down drastically. By 2050, more than half of the world’s population is expected to rely on food sourced from other countries. However, with the introduction of local cultured meat production, there could be a different scenario possible. A study conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (10) already shows that, in the near future, many nations will be pushed to make a top priority out of maximizing their domestic food production capacity. Cultured meat could become an important part of the solution.
The future
We cannot blame any one culture, country or geographical area for pandemics, as they occur anywhere. In the same way, we should seek to blame any sector, company or stakeholder for everything that has gone wrong with our food system. The responsibility in creating a food system that minimizes the emergence of new zoonotic diseases, and that is safer, more sustainable and more compassionate overall, is a responsibility that all of us share: from producers to consumers, from governments to NGOs.
It should be clear that today, in the middle of the pandemic, our attention should first of all go to controlling the virus and helping the afflicted. After we’ll have conquered the crisis and rebuilt our economy, we’ll need to take the time to see how we will be able to avoid other, potentially much worse pandemics in the future. Part of the answer will be found in the way we relate to animals and food.