Therefore also human species should be ready to carry out, in case of a pandemic caused by emerging viruses at very high mortality, the mechanism at genetic feedback. This way all the people, who are sensitive to the pathogen (emerging virus) should die and only the ones genetically resistant to the virus (emerging viruses) should survive. Obviously all this suggests the assertion of the already quoted theory David Pimentel expressed: “viruses and bacteria which attack an animal or a plant and live for long, don’t evolve towards types at high reproductivity and greater pathogenicity[1]” and again ” the evolution push is towards reproductive types which can give a balanced economy of supply and demand between prey species and preyed ones[2]”.
The multiplicity of philoviruses which passed from monkeys to man as emerging viruses lets some mechanisms regulating homeostasis in the ecosystem work.
Now there is another question to be asked, that is why all this occurred. The answer is simple but very interesting. We don’t know whether the monkeys that are the carriers of philoviruses are the primary host. Probably they aren’t. The fact is that when men make use of them in a massive way (20 thousand a year only in the United States, but in 1960 they were 200 thousand) they cause some artificial conditions of overcrowding among primate populations favouring the virus’s virulence: ” the more transmissible we make a virus the more violent it becomes”. All the cases of Ebola and Marburg epidemics, which broke out in Europe and America, occurred in places (quarantine plants) where monkeys were massed in conditions of overcrowding.
The latter condition has always been, both in nature and in a lab and for all animal species (man included), one of the first causes of the appearing of an epidemic. Obviously when, owing to the infection, the monkeys, which are the carriers, die or are euthanized, the viruses which, like all the other organisms, aim at their survival, pass to new hosts that are more within their reach: men. On the contrary as far as the animal reserve of philoviruses is concerned we don’t really know which of them may be the primary host (bats, spiders, ticks). Vice versa we have probably spotted, almost for certain, the seat or at least one of the seats of this reserve. It’s Kitum Cave on the slopes of Mount Elgon in Kenia: it’s in a strategic position among the epicentres of Ebola-Zaire epidemic and besides two of the victims of the Marburg virus had been in the place a few days, before presenting the symptoms of the disease.
The cave is inhabited by a very large number of different animal species: elephants, kafir buffalos, wild cats, monkeys of different species, rodents, bats, spiders, ticks, fleas. Each of these animals might be the original tank of Marburg and the other philoviruses.
The cave dates back to seven million years ago when an eruption turned a whole forest into a stone one. Apart from the suggestion such a place can evoke, as if it were mother earth’s prehistoric uterus, it’s unquestionable that nature” doesn’t accept any intrusion in such places[3]“.
[1] Pimentel D. Animal population regulation by the genetic feedback mechanism. Am Nat (XCV):67-79.1961.
2]Pimentel D. Op e pag.cit.
[3] In the movie Outbreak there is a scene that struck me a lot. When the protagonist (Dustin Hoffman) gets to the village which is prey to an epidemic, besides the scene like the one of “Apocalypse Now” that appears before our eyes, on a hillock overlooking the village, a shaman is making strange rites. The local guide explains the wizard is trying to appease the evil spirits which are angry with man because the latter has violated the Sacred Forest.
Translated from “Il Virus Intelligente” by Enrica Narducci
To be continued in :
6) Emerging Viruses 6°
See also:
2) Emerging Viruses 2°
3) Emerging Viruses 3°
4) Emerging Viruses 4°
Ferdinando Gargiulo offers you a new perspective on why new viral epidemics, assaults, infanticides, suicide epidemics and even environmental catastrophes. Always engaged in his research decides to create a blog to offer his readers content of high value.