The Amazon forest could become the next source of corona virus

Ecologist David Lapola warned that the next pandemic could originate from the Amazon rainforest because humans are increasingly invading animal habitats.

The Amazon forest is being cleared at an alarming rate. (Photo: Bloomberg).

Researchers identified urbanization of natural areas as contributing to the emergence of zoonotic diseases , including Covid-19, an epidemic believed to originate from bats before spread to humans through intermediate hosts. Lapola, an expert on how human activities reshape tropical forest ecosystems in the future, said urbanization is taking place in the Amazon. He emphasized that the Amazon forest is a huge reservoir of viruses, so people should not take risks.

The Amazon, the world's largest rain forest, is disappearing at an alarming rate. Last year, deforestation in the Amazon forest in Brazil increased 85%, to more than 10,000 km2, nearly the area of ​​Lebanon. This trend is ongoing this year. From January to April 2020, 1,202 square kilometers of forests were wiped out, setting a new record for the first four months of the year, according to satellite-based data from the Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE). According to Lapola, a PhD in Earth system modeling at Germany's Max Planck Institute and a researcher at the University of Campinas in Brazil, when humans create ecological imbalances, that's when the virus can be transmitted from things to people.

The same pattern has occurred with HIV, Ebola and dengue viruses. All viruses occur or spread on a large scale due to ecological imbalance, Lapola stressed. Most outbreaks concentrated in South Asia and Africa are often related to certain bats. But the enormous biodiversity in the Amazon can turn this region into "the world's largest source of corona viruses".