Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Epidemics will flourish claims WHO’S top doc
HUMANKIND is creating conditions in which epidemics like Covid-19 will continue to “flourish”, a senior figure in the World Health Organisation has told the Mirror.
Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Programme Dr Mike Ryan warns today we are creating vast slums like the “cesspit” citystates where plagues thrived in the Middle Ages.
And the Sligo man says we continue to be ill-prepared for such eventualities as trillions are spent on defence against armies, yet almost nothing is invested in defending ourselves against “microbes that have brought our civilisation to its knees”.
Dr Ryan was speaking as both he and Dr Lilian Otiso of Kenya’s LVCT Health were give the Romero Award by Irish aid agency Trocaire “in recognition of their efforts to protect vulnerable communities from Covid”.
Asked if a pandemic similar to coronavirus is likely to happen again in the near future, Dr Ryan told the Mirror: “We are pushing nature to its limits, we are pushing communities to their limits, we’re stressing environments to their limits.
“We are also pushing people into peri-urban [outside cities] slums. We are creating conditions in which epidemics flourish much like in Medieval times, the city-states which were cesspits of contagion.
“We are driving people away from their homes due to climate stress. We are also driving epidemic risk in the way we produce food, in the way we transport food. We exploit pristine environments, we’re misusing antimicrobrials and driving resistance.”