Deforestation triggers more disease

GOOD morning to you all again, I hope you had a good week.

Matthew Henry, the famous Bible Scholar, was once accosted by thieves and robbed. In his diary he wrote. Let me be thankful first, because they took my purse and not my life and third, because it was I would was robbed and not I who robbed. For this man, doing God's will was far more important than what had happened to him. The Apostle Paul also demonstrated this attitude as he was told about his future. Though the prophet Agabus had foretold his imprisonment in Jerusalem (Acts 21-V10-11) Paul was undeterred. His desire was to do Gods will and fulfill his purpose for his life, no matter what might happen to him. Paul's desire was to obey the Lord for his name's sake. None of us knows what tomorrow holds.

Sometimes, God's will involves walking through the valley of the shadow of death”. Obeying God's will is the right way.

Lets pause for a moment: We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling, And needing more each day my grace to know, Yet from our hearts a song of Triumph Pealing, We rest on thee, and in my name we go. What we call adversity, God calls opportunity.

Our topic – In the 1970's eminent people were saying it was the end of the infectious disease era. We now find after the experience of the 1980s and 1990's we are sadder and wiser says Professor Tony Mc Michael of the Australian National University in Canberra . Rates of infectious disease have risen rapidly in many countries in recent years. Illness and death from tuberculosis, malaria, dengue fever and aids are up sharply. The resurgence of diseases once thought to have been conquered stems from a deadly mix of exploding population, rampant poverty, inadequate heath care, misuse of antibiotic and severe environmental degradation, says the report from the Washington world watch institute.

“Infection diseases are the basic barometer of the environmental sustainability of human activity”. Says the report author ANNE PLATT.” Recent outbreak result from the sharp imbalance between a human population growing by 88 million each year and a natural resources base that is under increasing stress”. Evidence is mounting that deforestation and ecosystem change have something to do with the phenomenon, according to the report compiled by the working group on land use change and disease emergence, an international group of infection disease and environmental heath expert”, point out Dr. Jonathan A. Patz, the lead author of the report.

As people remark the worlds landscapes cutting forest, draining wetlands, building roads and dams, and pushing the margins of cities ever outward infections diseases and gaining new toeholds, cropping up in the new places and new hosts and posing an ever increasing risk to human and animal health. The dramatic resources of infections disease is telling us that we are approaching disease and medicine as well as economic development in the wrong way, world watch notes.

One of the clearest example of the ecosystem disruption effects disease behavior can be seen in the interaction between deforestation and the infectious and particularly vectorbourne, diseases that are common through tropics and subtropics. A vector is organisms that are transmit a disease from place to place. In the 1940's Trinidad suffered a malaria epidemic in response to deforestation for massive cacao plantations. The plantations proved ideal many species of bromeliad plants, 20 of which turned out to be perfect breeding sites for local malaria-carrying mosquito's-anopheles bellator”. Line disease which is spread by ticks, was first identified in 1976 in the north-eastern part of the united states. Forest fragmentation, loss of predators and the shift of suburbia closer to woodlands were all implicated in the appearance of the disease.

Another example was the Nipah Virus, in 1999 this virus killed 100 people in Malaysia and nine in Singapore . The virus was normally carried by the forest fruit bat and ha not previously seemed to pass to human, however, because of deforestation and agricultural techniques the bats normal habitat and food source were changed. This forced the bat to encroach into fruit plantations, which were in close proximately to pig farms. The bats of course, infected the pigs, which in turned infected the farmers and their families. The source then, that the deforestation has a very great impact on the emergencies of disease. This was stated by Dr. Victor Lim in Malaysian professor of microbiology at University Hospital. In Malaysia and another ospitalHiHoi Countries which lush tropical jungle and immense biodiversity, I am sure there are lots of pathogens lurking in the jungles, they have been their for many years and they are quite happy to be there among the animals, but i think things start going wrong when we encroach unto the jungles and begin cutting down tree's. Take Care, See You next Week...