Bilatzailea
Homo non-sapiens virus
As I write this column, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). To date, about 500 infections have been detected and more than 131 virus-related deaths have been recorded. Have you received any information about this? I bet not! But if I talk to you about hantavirus, have you heard about it in recent weeks? I'm sure you will
I have been surprised by the coverage that has been given to the Hantavirus issue in recent weeks. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but from the information I have received through social networks, it has been a topic that has been worked on day and night in most TV channels. Although I believe that information is never excessive, if the information received is not of quality, it is of little use. And I’m going to say more, when you put people who don’t know anything about microbiology or epidemiology to talk about this issue, instead of informing society, it gets confused and agitated.
In the following lines I would like to talk about the reason for the different coverage that is made around these two apparitions. It is clear that the citizens of the West do not perceive the two apparitions equally. But why? Because the viruses are completely different? Of course not! The biology of viruses is minimal, the key is who and where is infected.
“As such, there should be some discussion about the dangers of going on tourism to remote and inaccessible parts of the Earth.”
Ebola has spread in Africa so far, and the outbreak is often associated with poverty and humanitarian crises. It mainly affects people who do not travel, lack resources and live far from large economic areas. The case of the hantavirus on the cruise ship Hondius projects the opposite image. The outbreak appeared on an Antarctic expedition cruise among international passengers with high purchasing power. Although I find it incomprehensible, the majority of the population feels closer to the passengers of the Hondius cruise, to the inhabitants of the rural areas of the Congo, or to those who try to cross the Mediterranean by boat, trying to escape wars and famines.
The reality is stark: While citizens of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are unable to escape from Ebola, the world’s wealthy citizens become infected in the search for “wild” remote experiences. In both cases nature and zoonotic viruses intervene, but the context radically changes the story and the story. So there should be some discussion about the dangers of going on tourism to remote and inaccessible parts of the Earth, and I’m not talking about the dangers that tourists take, but about the impact of Homo non-sapiens viruses on the destruction of ecosystems.
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