Thinking over epidemics and environment

This article, written by Dr. Akhila S. Nair, Asst. Professor, Ambo University, was published by The Ethiopian Herald. To read it on the newspaper's site, Click Here

An awareness campaign against Ebola in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, September 25, 2014.
Obtained from: http://links.org.au/node/4167

Each day unravels before me many reasons why environmental science continues to be interdisciplinary. The branch of science has got strong linkages not only with the natural science, but also with humanities and social sciences. Globalism, eco-writing, environmental laws… there is a long list of instances when there occurs a marriage between environmental science and other schools of knowledge. On the other hand, laws of the land, culture, customs, mindset of the people, new inventions, historic discoveries and technological revolutions – all continue to have due impact on our environment. 

I was just thinking of these in the wake of the current surge of epidemics. Morbidity of living organisms, in short, leads to the morbidity of the environment, too. Epidemics thwart our green dreams. Virtuous life is fostered only when members of a society is healthy and happy. Preaching about environment to a perished society won’t earn desirable results. 

With Ebola outbreak, epidemic has become a hotly debated subject world over. Epidemic means the spread of infectious disease to a large number of people or other livings within short period of time. A disease is called an epidemic if the affected population crosses the expected number of infected people in a particular area.  Ebola, HIV/AIDS, Avian bird flu, Malaria, Cholera, Plague, Meningitis etc are some of the examples. 

Ebola info-graphic obtained from: http://flashpointsurvival.com. 

Connection between epidemic and environment is intertwined. For example, according to World Health Organization, a number of manmade and natural environmental factors including water supply, sanitation facilities, food and climate change influence the chances and spreading of epidemics. In case of diarrheal outbreaks most of the time, improper environmental hygiene is the main curse.  In case of many of such epidemics like Malaria or Ebola, natural hosts or vectors play a major role in their spreading.  Climate change can either favour or suppress the spread of vectors. 

It is a well known truth that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. But isn’t it also a truth that when climate change, fertilizer prize and dire lack of irrigation together take a villains’ role, poor people cannot find any better food than bush meat? Any epidemic outbreak weakens the physical and mental strength of the workforce. When there is no healthy agricultural workforce, there would be a concomitant crop loss and income loss. Consequently, there will be poverty, famine and diseases. 

Epidemics of livestock and poultry have also proved decisive.  November 2014 avian influenza virus attack on ducks in my homeland, Kerala in India, was reported to have brought a loss of over Rs.125 million to farmers. Though the disease outbreak could be successfully controlled due to timely intervention of the authorities, the money lost is lost; the peace of mind gone is gone. Definitely, such times of havoc drain away one’s eco-friendly enthusiasm. The reason should not be different for some countries having high prevalence of HIV/AIDS to lag behind socioeconomic developments. 

For such epidemics like HIV/AIDS, usually the victims come under the young age groups, who constitute not only the main workforce but also the major actors for positive social change, environmental wisdom and so on. When young adults face such catastrophe, there would be consequent turmoil in economy, farming, land use and natural resource management. When life itself is eroding, who would care about soil erosion!  

At the lash of an epidemic, people are thrown to stiff poverty. Naturally, for their minimal sustenance, they start seeking some shortcuts to make money. Thus becoming rampant would be sale and consumption of charcoal, timber, fuel wood and wild fruits duly exploiting their proximate natural resources. 

When society’s establishments fail to provide timely attention, epidemic victims resort to traditional healers, who would tax indigenous plant species in the localities for medicine and income. As the exploitation crosses limits, such plants fall under threatened category. Some studies have even pointed to the increased use of timber for making coffins in most affected localities. Not only that, fake traditional healers could prove detrimental, too. 

Tips to know between flu and Ebola. Obtained from: http://flashpointsurvival.com 

There were certain findings that HIV/AIDS patients think that their lifespan is shorter and hence there is no need for any commitment to the slogan, sustainable development. This underlines the need for social counseling for enhancing optimism among epidemic victims. Another finding is that premature deaths due to epidemics have stopped transfer of certain traditional knowledge about sustainable management of natural resources. 

Thus the issue is complex. When epidemics further mar the lives of the poor, how could they be eco-prudent? One thing is clear: wide gap exists in unraveling the intricate connections between epidemics, natural environment and its resources. But let’s not step an inch back in our struggle for the wellbeing of the environment to assure the wellbeing of its members; and vice versa. 

- Dr. Akhila S. Nair

Books's Face 1: A Phoenix's call at unwanted children

Chinese Cinderella

Childhood recollections by: Adeline Yen Mah

Publisher: Pearson Education Ltd.

First published: 1999

First educational edition: 2002

Source: Library, Ambo University, Ethiopia

Courtesy: Ms. Deepsikha Saikia, who lent me the book and patiently waited for long before I return.

17^th century Cinderella is an Italian. We change this notion while reading Adeline Yen Mah’s ‘Chinese Cinderella’ - a book that is not only an account of her childhood miseries, but also a handbook on Chinese history, language and literature. Mah’s self portrayal of her childhood agonies and stiff sessions of seclusion are heart rendering. Rightly, she has dedicated the 1999-published book to ‘all unwanted children’.

Adeline turns a Chinese Cinderella once her father makes a second marriage and the couple begins making an unfair distinction between the previous children and their own children. Soon after giving birth to Adeline, her mother died. Father remarries. In her life she couldn’t even see a photograph of her real mother. Consequently the little child falls prey to a superstition. The child was believed to have bad blood that must bring only ill fate to the family. This brought huge extortions and pain in the life of a budding girl. Between 1941 and 1951, i.e. from the age of 4 to 14, she had more abominable things to recollect than adorable ones.

Constantly loving Aunt Baba, gracious grandmother, Nai Nai and generous grandfather Ye Ye were shades of solace. Instead, stepmother Niang and Father only sowed seeds of pain in the tender heart. Her siblings were but miserably influenced by the malice spread by the parents.

Success, achievements and celebrations are untold for a Cinderella, testifies Adeline’s life. Love, care and consideration are exclusive rights of children, except of Adeline’s sort. Scarce privileges and salubrious life experiences are only a mirage for children like Adeline whom parents consider unwanted.

Cities of Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong have contrast differences. But all these cities gave single bitter experience for Adeline: secluded boarding life, pitifully uncared by any elder from home. No letter, no egg, no special food, and no visitor – she had nothing to expect from home. School for Adeline was thus a lone asylum of dreams and pleasures – created by her and enjoyed by her.  During vacations, while she used to be the only girl unclaimed by parents, empty dormitory beds looked like scary rows of tombs. Still, instead of getting stuck by the dismay, the little girl spends her lonely hours in libraries simply to be engulfed by King Lear-kind of Shakespeare or Sara Crewe-kind of Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Prior to a play-writing competition when a disinterested Adeline told “I’m afraid of losing”, Mother Louis suggested, “Anyone who enters has a chance. However, if you don’t enter, then you certainly have destroyed your chance before you even begin”. When she was dejected for not hearing for over six months from the play-writing competition board, Mother Louisa tells her: “Be patient. No news is good news. As long as you don’t hear, you can keep on hoping […]”. As a child, Adeline had exceptional ability to identify and imbibe from the elixir contained in such elderly words.  She was blessed with a trait to understand the ‘talisman power’ of such words. That must be the secret virtue that made her emerge as the country’s first winner in an international English play-writing competition at the age of 14 and later anchor herself on the victory stands of life. This single aspect can alone motivate readers regardless of age and sex.

While concluding her own Cinderella-like experiences, she compares herself with a Chinese Cinderella named Ye Xian whose legendary story was prevalent during Tang Dynasty of 7^th and 8^th centuries. Ye Xian was loathed by her stepmother, but later emerged a shining star fighting life with sheer determination, hard work and optimism. Through her book Adeline introduces the same genre of phoenix inherent in her. The Adeline Phoenix should certainly kindle a flame of determination among all unwanted children in this modern world.

Adeline has made an admirable selection from the piles of her childhood reminiscences. She could arrange those memory blocks with a cherubic care to make an impressive ‘Chinese Cinderella’. While turning page after page, readers receive an irrefutable soft touch of a petite innocent girl. Line after line, she tweets charmingly the tale of a girl child who was nobody, but later becomes somebody – story of a girl spinning herself a life of dignity and delight against rudely abrasive abashments.

As readers finish reading ‘Chinese Cinderella’, they are gifted with a treasure trove of optimism. A clear insight upon the China of 1940s and 1950s, the wars won and lost and captivating aspects of Chinese calligraphy are just a bonus.

- K.P. Sivakumar