OK. Well, so first of all, thank you very much to the webinar vet for inviting me here today. I'm going to be sharing a theme that is extremely important for me, that is the anthropogenic impact on emerging infectious diseases and endangered species health.

For those of you that doesn't know me, my name is Fabiola Quezada. I'm a veterinarian. I'm currently busy with my PhD and I'm part of the Royal College of Veterinarian Surgeon.

Over a decade, a decade ago, I started Wild Spirit, which is a wildlife veterinarian courses here in South Africa for you of, of those that very interest of learning about wildlife veterinary medicine in the ground. You're most welcome to, to join us. And About 5 years ago, I started a foundation called Wildlife Spirit Fund, and the aim of that is to do wildlife conservation project and health project, wildlife health projects on the ground across Africa.

So I really encourage you, all of you to have a look at our work and yeah, and enjoy the presentation. So And one hour and a half time enough to, to tell you everything I would like to or to share with you deep knowledge of many issues, but however, yes, I can, there's something I can do. Albert Einstein said that education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.

So I really hope that at the end of this presentation, your brains are really working there to thinking in a different dimension and maybe before you never even considered about. So, I believe all of you are familiar with the concept One Health. Others, they are called or different or similarities are called with wildlife Conservation Medicine, wildlife medicine, and then we have global health.

I'm not going to go in details about the difference between one and the others. All I can say that in the 3 Subject, we agree that the health of the environment, the health of humans and the health of the animals, they are interconnected. And because they're interconnected, the problems that affect one affect the others, and so the solutions, they need to become in a multidisciplinary approach and in a global approach.

But why is suddenly so important? Why now, we are all talking about one health, we're including now in the curriculum? And what is important as well for the economy of the planet.

Well, there is a fact and that this is a scary fact. In the past 50 years, wildlife populations have halved and the human population have doubled. So if we say that in, in other words, in the past 50 years, humanity has whipped out the 60% of wild animal population.

That is quite scary. So, something that maybe a lot of you don't know or, or maybe yes, is that we are currently living in mass extinction. It's something that is extremely scary if we think about that we are currently on our present life.

And it's the first extinction that was created or is created by one species, and that's the species, the Homo sapien. So, in previous, the previous one, it was the dinosaurs, and we all studying when we were little and many science are still studying about that. But currently, we are living one that is the destruction and the extinction of the of many species.

So parallel to that, I'm just going to give you some facts and then you will understand how we are putting everything together. Emerging infectious diseases are are a direct threat to global health and have quadrupled in incidents in humans and wildlife over the past 50 years. OK.

So we have emerging infectious diseases. Now, they are a threat to humans and wildlife, and there are 4 times more in the past 50 years, which is exactly the same time that humans have doubled and wildlife is halved. So, here are more facts.

The 70% of emerging infectious diseases. On humans, so emerging facilities affecting humans are of are of animal origin, OK? So that figures, it can freak us out.

It's like, oh my goodness, all these, diseases are coming from, from animals, and from this figure, the 70 to 70, the 60 to 70% are coming from wildlife. However, sometimes we live in a bubble. We feel like we humans, we are isolated from the rest of the planet.

And nothing can touch us. And this is my job to do it, to show how we, our actions are having a direct impact on how they're increasing these diseases that ultimately they're affecting us as well. So what is an exponential increase of emerging infectious diseases in recent decades, and how is this related to the loss of biodiversity?

If there's any connection at all, or it just by chance? Well, yes, there is a connection. So deforestation, climate change, change on land, biodiversity, lost, invasive species, and climate pollution increase the likelihood of many diseases and, and new disease manifestation.

In other words, the human origin, the anthropogenic factors driving a species of extinctions are exactly the same one that do increasing the likelihood of emerging infectious diseases appearance and spillover. So One second when we talk about infectious diseases, emerging infectious diseases, and we refer, we put the two words together, wildlife and emerging infectious diseases. Depending on the areas where we are, they are going to be approaching and talking in one way or the other.

And this is why we, that we work with wildlife, it's so important that we bring our approach and we do the research as well from the field. So, if you talk with people that work with wildlife conservation, that is myself, then absolutely we will answer emerging infectious diseases are a threat to biodiversity. However, in veterinary science, too often and the universities too often, they show emerging diseases like a threat to livestock and animal production.

And if we talk about the public eye and popular media, we again, too often the only way that they put to the two work together wildlife and emerging infectious diseases are that they are the reason or the cause of these diseases that they're affecting human population. So now the question is, is now wildlife a threat or is wildlife a threat? And this is again is for those ones working with wildlife medicine, it's extremely important that we clarify this concept.

And the next question is, should we intervene in the health of the natural populations on the wild? Should we do research about or should we just leave the nature alone by itself? Well, unfortunately, everything, or luckily, everything is connected in nature.

And the same thing that everything is connected when we are breaking. Taking the balance and our actions, they have a negative effect. Therefore, if we are here to destroy it, we should be here as well to protect and to restore the nature and the balance of nature.

So let's talk about the different anthropogenic factors that currently they are increasing emerging infectious diseases and at the same time, they're bringing the species to to extinction. And I don't want you all, no one to get depressed on this talk. What I want at the end of the talk, so please stay with me until the end is to encourage you all to see that there are solutions and the solution there in our hands, in the hands of professionals like you and me that we are working currently.

So let's talk about climate change and I'm going to try to make it as easy as possible. I try to make it quite peaceful. So just this picture, the holes that you see here, this picture was taken in Tanzania last year.

We had a big drought and that, that the steps there, that holds the steps of, of elephants. This the, the remaining leftovers of or left water, drinkable, or usable water for the community we work at in Tanzania. So, if you see this picture, I can count here 1234 epos, probably it was another one here.

This picture was taken in, in Uganda a few years ago. I took it, well, by the way, all the pictures are mine is that some of the, a colleague, a professional photographer. So that photo was taken and you see this, and if you, have you ever been in Africa or see the documentaries about Africa, you will understand that it they don't like to be on this kind of matter.

They like to be on water, relatively clean water. So what happened basically, there was a big drought and they were the remaining water available for, for these animals. So if I see this image, there is one thing that I think come directly to my mind, and it's anthrax.

A few years ago in 2016, it was a big drought in Kruger National Park and we had many outbreaks of anthrax. So anthrax is one disease that is endemic. It's endemic diseases, animals, they, they, they develop immune system against them.

Some of them depend on the expo exposure, but it's normal in the ecosystem. However, in one situation on high drought, there's outbreaks. Why?

Just imagine this situation, animals dying on these circumstances and creating the perfect conditions for anthraxx to, to create their outbreaks. On climate change, again, that photo I took it two weeks ago, and it's the first time that really climate change shows me, and it, it broke my heart. So I believe that we are familiar with the polar bears and the, and the, and the, and, and the the poles, how they are melting, right?

Well, now, first time living in Africa, . I saw, I, I, I, I saw directly and, and it was really heartbreaking. So how climate change is affecting the elephant population in Gabon.

So Gabon is is a country in the West Coast where we have projects and we will talk you about the, we'll tell you about more a little bit later. And this is like a, a pristine environment, absolutely no populations in hundreds of kilometres around, and there is the impact of humans into wildlife populations. So you might know that the forest elephants, these for elephants are currently in danger.

They are because of poaching, mainly and historically hunting of them, but on these areas that are protected. So even if we protect them and there's no poaching, they are even a, a bigger or another bigger threat that is impacting on them. So, it happened in the past few years, in the past 5 years, actually, there are, the publications on, on research on this.

The forests have changed the fruit, the fruit production and the grasslands have changed as well, the production to the point of there's not enough nutrition to these animals. You can see this animal. If you go to a scale of 1 to 5, probably this animal is already on 1.5 or in a 1.

Another thing that you might see in this picture is plastics around on the back. Again, this beach is actually in the middle of nowhere close to civilization is 500 kilometres, and there are the currents coming with plastics from the rest of the, from the coast 100 kilometres away. So, let's talk about other diseases.

So again, obviously, this animal, the previous animal might die directly for a lack of nutrition, but you can as well consider this animal immune system is highly compromised and how infectious diseases are easily going to affect this animal, the normal conditions will not affect. So let's talk about other diseases that are affecting from domestic animals that they are jumping into wildlife. So usually when you see this photo, if you're not a veterinarian and you see this photo, probably most will say, OK, who is winning here, no.

And most people will say the lion. Well these ones that we work with wildlife, Depending on the circumstances, we understand the higher risk of this proximity, and we understand that whenever they interface occur, we always need to understand that it goes in a double way. And there are many diseases that come from domestic animals that are affecting the already, already threatening species like big cats.

So let's talk about tuberculosis. So, tuberculosis, a disease that you are all absolutely familiar, tuberculosis bobbies affecting cattles, totally, absolutely familiar. Well, tuberculosis bobbies were, was introduced in Africa a few, about 100 years ago, if, if not, it's slightly longer, and into South Africa, Kruger National Park, which is a protected area.

In the south, about the first, outbreak or the first spillover from livestock in the wildlife about 100 years ago. So from 100 years ago to today, the 50% of the buffaloes of Kruger National Park they affected with tuberculosis. To the point, mycobacterian bodies, to the point that today, buffaloes are considered the higher reservoir, reservoir of tuberculosis.

In the country and it's almost considered an endemic, and I say endemic disease, because again, it was not originally. The problem of this situation is one is established in a population like that, how are we going to control that? Anyway, again, the whole presentation that we need to go to discuss the different measures of control of this disease, of this situation.

And the risk as well that is going to, can go when it's transferring to other populations and other animals, you know. So, who is eating buffaloes? Lions.

Again, on buffaloes, when the symptoms they show, they usually show when the animals are very old, so it's a chronic disease, the same that is a chronic disease on cows. So it doesn't see currently that it's affecting the population of buffaloes per se. It might be in the long term, it might affect them somehow that we still don't know in the, as the population itself.

But the animals individually, at the moment, we don't see effects that they're highly affected until they are all showing a lot of symptoms until the animals are very old. And again, we have, we are currently doing quite a lot of studies on that. And who is eating buffaloes?

Lions. So, and how are the lions are social animals that they eat the lungs and we know that some of the main organs that are affected are lungs, and they are the lions that they eat the, the carcass and they eat the lungs and then the heart. And the description on, on lions, it shows, yes, they show the yop pathology is much faster.

They show symptoms in the skin. This, that, heart that you see is a pericardium for a little calf, so, so for little lion. So, yes, we, we're starting to see a changes of the dynamics of the lions.

So we count to lions on the park, it seems like they're not affected. But if you saw the dynamics, we see the younger lions that are starting to, to die quicker. And a lot of them are affected by tuberculosis.

11 quickly concept is that FIV it might not play a role in in the disease, sorry, it might not play a role in nature. So at the moment, is considered FIV is not How the lions they don't develop symptoms on the wild until proven otherwise. However, one of the question is, if the lions, they have this, this virus is going to be higher or not, the appearance of tuberculosis.

OK, so something that we need to consider is if they see we are the concept of climate change, where There are more and more droughts depending on the areas of the continent. There are situations where this drought might increase the interfaces between livestock and wildlife and therefore are going to increase as well the transmission of diseases. And one of these diseases are tuberculosis.

Let's talk another disease. Let's talk about distemper. You might know, well, you, I'm sure you are all veterinarians, so you all know about distemper affecting dogs, so that it is quite clear.

Something that maybe some of you are not familiar is that distemper can affect some of the family of the cats as well, including lions. So, you might find interesting that in 1994, distemper, an outbreak of distemper killed the 30% of the lions. Seems like the spill over, it was from dogs.

However, there is still some data missing. But yeah, it looked like, most probably it was originated from dogs here in South Africa in 2016, in one of the reserves. We have another outbreak and it killed the 90%, 95% of the, of the lion population.

So symptoms is the same symptom as well, neurological symptoms among, amongst other and ultimately death of the animal. Again, campaigns of how to control that, just for you to know quickly, when it outbreaks of distemper on the wild and lions is the only situation that we must consider vaccinations and In the wild here in South Africa, we inclined for, for using recoming a vaccine by the risk that it might be live vaccines that can produce a live vaccine of, on the, on the wild population. But again, there is another presentation that we will, and discussion that we will need to have regarding this.

Let's talk about another disease that we thought, well, we always think rabies are reservoirs, there are wildlife are reservoirs of, of rabies. So we could never think probably that it's going to affect an endangered species or it's going to kill a population of something that is wild. Well, we are, that's, that's quite wrong.

Rabies kill. Populations, full populations of wild dogs, and as well they're a threat along with distemper of the Ethiopian wolf. You might know that the Ethiopian, Ethiopian wolf and the African wild dog, they are one of the most endangered carnivores, if not the most endangered carnivores on the continent.

So again, together with that, we are the deceased. So then another concept that we might be not familiar with is when we talk about stressed wild populations. So usually, we think it's something that is wild, an ecosystem, really, we think it's impossible that this this animal is stressed.

The animal itself, it might not be stressed. But the population is considered a stress. When we consider in population stress when they have restrained or they have limitations on the nutrition, or the access to nutrition, food, access to water, and to normal behaviour that they will express themselves.

So, when are we putting animals into this situation or where are we putting populations into this situation? And then, again, think again. If you, we think of an animal that is stressed with limited food or restriction to food, to water, to change on behaviour, then What is the thing, first thing that is going to go compromised, the immune system.

So the immune system is compromised, what is the first thing that is going to come with this disease? So let's see how this thing works, how it's possible that populations are, are stressed. Well, logging and habitat fermentation and change on land is something that is happening, daily basis.

This is some picture of Gabon. Not just because Gabon is is more distract other countries. On the contrary, actually, it's one of the last evening of Africa.

It's one of the best protected countries in Africa. And therefore, actually is I think it's why it's so easy to see when there are small changes that they are happening on that pristine environment. So this imagine we see it in Gabon and we see it in many other countries.

So yes, we have humans coming to lock the the ecosystem and changing the ecosystem into agriculture. So, the distractions of the ecosystem and they are bringing some populations to creating islands of these populations. So in the situation where we create roads, for example, or where we create agricultural lands, or we, when we have cs in the middle, we might create populations that they are wild, but these populations, they are isolated from each other.

And again, where your natural migrations they used to, used to occur, not now, suddenly these animals they are restricted to some specific areas that they might not provide all the nutrition and the water that this animal needs. And other things that we need to consider, the genetics diversity. Now, suddenly, the genetics, the, the animals are restricted to some areas where it might be prone to inbreeding, depending on the size of the population.

And then obviously when the situation like The roads that are built on the middle, then we add the extra additional risk factor of our road, roadkills. Here is just another example that previous picture and this picture is in Uganda in the way of Tachuson Falls, one of the the origin of, of the Niles are considered to be there, one of the, the beautiful wildlife areas in Uganda. However, The, the construction, new constructions for, for development of, I'm not going to go into details and that.

They are having a direct impact. You can see here is a clear example, the population that used to move between different areas suddenly a road is going totally to break these populations in half. Other situations, again, we don't need roads, we don't need fence.

It might be that the human population around and they're putting some animals at risk. So, Sorry, I for I miss the photography there. So on this, I put this picture here because there's a picture of Queen Elizabeth National Park where there's, on this forest there's a population of chimpanzees living there, 27 exactly.

One of the reasons why these animals cannot live, that gorge is because the human population around, they know that they will get killed, so the animals are staying there. There's a higher risk of inbreeding on the area plus chimpanzees, they have, as you might know, they have a very complex social dynamics. So yes, social behaviour there, there's a risk as well of increasing the stress on the population.

And let's go into something that is even more direct, affecting directly wildlife and maybe you will see even more clear the, the, the impact. This this photography of this rhino poach, it was taken here on the reserve where I'm currently in, in South Africa. You might know that the poaching in South Africa and what, rhinos, poaching in South Africa have increased tremendously in the past 12 years.

Currently, it seems like it's decreasing, but as well, on the other hand, we are, numbers of rhinos are extremely low. So let's just think for one second. We have mafias that are coming in here and local people as well involved, but they are decimating the population, killing, in this case, white rhinos and taking one part of this animal.

In this situation, we are taking horns from the, from the rhinos. And then these rhinos they travel all the way to the other part of the, of the continent. So you can, again, you can consider, we are taking sources outside of the wildlife.

Without any birth control whatsoever, and then we are illegally transporting them to the other part of the planet. So you can imagine as well again the, the risk of disease transmission throughout the, the planet. So let's talk about bush meat.

So something, unfortunately something that we see. Tremendously increased as well in the past years. So bush meat is something that has been done traditionally in Africa and, and around the planet, I guess.

It's basically killing wild animals to consumption, to local consumption to survive. For some reason, demand is becoming fashion, it's getting more and more and more, we are seeing more and more of, of this situation and it is narrow. One of the practise of killing animals is snare.

Snares. They're usually metal snares that they're putting on the ground. Usually, they tend for, for aimed for small animals, but any animal that get there, get killed.

Again, the, the origin or the intention of that is for consumption of meat. But any animal can get there. So this situation is a buffalo, and you can imagine this situation, we, we treat the buffalo, but the chances of surviving are, at quite low.

And other situations again, it happens that they get affected as well endangered species such cheetahs. This is again another picture here in the reserve where I live, and that piece of meat up on the right is the mother of these babies. So luckily in this situation as well the babies, they were rescued, but unfortunately the mother were not.

The risk, and again, another thing that we need for another different conversation is that the risk of reintroducing and the difficulties of reintroducing this kind of, of, of, of the introducing wildcats back on the wild once they were hand raised. And let's go to a different part of the planet, we're going again to Gabon, and this is things that you might find in a menu for consumption. We're talking about bush meat, no consumption of wildlife directly from the forest to the table, and there are different species, you might be familiar with some of them, pangolin and something that again is not totally fancy restaurants, but yes, you will find in any local restaurants.

An images like that, that was again taken two weeks ago. On the side of the road. So this is magic is absolutely normal to find on the side of the road along with hundreds of the species that we found.

So the question here is first, the impact that this, that is having directly on the population. Pangollins. The question again, these are activities that has been done isorically for many, many years and it was, they were sustainable.

In the past. Unfortunately, again, things that we need to consider now is that the population of humans is double and the wildlife is is half. In many species over there is, is way smaller.

So, if we keep consuming on the same speed that we used to do it, definitely it's going to have a high impact. You might be aware and that currently, pangolin scales is one of the most trade wildlife parts on this planet. So in this situation, this animal is for consumption.

And again, you can think the risk of disease that is going directly. I mean, you are all veterinarians, you only study disease control for public health and the risk of disease on public health, and this is the role of we veterinarians controlling diseases, and then here we are consuming wildlife constantly taking out of the forest, consuming humans more and more and more, and now faster and faster, exporting them to the rest of the planet. Another endangered species that you might be familiar with.

And there is something that they happened a few years ago that affected all and I'm not going to go into debate of conspiracy or not. I'm going to be based my words on facts. And we know that the human SARS is a 96.3 equal that on another coronavirus that is found on horse bats and there are explanation that they are genomic research on that.

As well, we know. That coronavirus are familiar of virus that they are very familiar and they are many of the disease, many of the species that we work with in a daily basis. So, including to the fact that after the first year of life, more than 80% of domestic species, including dogs, cats and cattle are set a positive for at least one coronavirus without expressing clinical symptoms.

And here again, some data and I like to, to show when, when some facts there. Well, this article, this article, I just took today, how, how many times they were named and it's named more than 6700 times, almost 7000 times it was referred to this article that they They say that the origin of SARS, it was based on epidemiological and pathogenic. It was on the, on the wet market of Wuhan City.

And then again, we put together wild animals without any control of diseases. If we have animals that they were captured directly from the wild, submit on this situation, yes, on highly, highly expressed. And then constantly consuming by human.

So actually, with a little bit of logic, we could consider that the strange is that doesn't happen more often, isn't it? And then, again, here a project that is an article that was done in 2007, again, so we are now 20 years back or 15 years back, that shows that It was found that the the, the, the ecology of coronavirus, the SARS one, it was found on, on the bats, the same bats, and it was actually an epidemia back in the time on, on China. So that same bats has been continuously consumed by humans with no health control whatsoever and then oops, it happened to be that it creates an outbreaks of a pandemia.

So let's talk about other pandemia. Let's talk about HIV. HIV we are all familiar, right?

But maybe something that we never consider is where is coming HIV, and where it's coming Ebola from, the same that is SARS that suddenly is, is a new thing. HIV is a, is a pandemia, it's well installed in across the planet. And now it's a human disease, but where's the origin of that?

Well, it happened to be that there, there are quite report, there are quite a few reports that the origin of that, it was from the consumption of chimpanzees, mainly and manga bee monkeys in Central Africa. So again, from the bush meat consumption without any veterinary control directly from the bush, from the local people, from, from the forest to the locals. It might have been.

That one thing is when is described, other thing is when it was original. Then again, we need to understand in the past 50 years, the evolution has has been, again, the human population has increased tremendously and transport have increased tremendously. So it creates the perfect ecos for animals.

So for this diseases to spread across the, the country, across the planet, sorry. Then we have Ebola. And that we are all very familiar.

At least we, at some point in our life, a few years ago, we were all very scared about Ebola, but Ebola affecting humans and all we knew is all the controls that we need to do to control Ebola virus to stop the, the spreading within the human population. However, something that you might know is that the origin of Ebola, it was as well on chimpanzees. Well, the, the spill over from, from Ebola virus, there are different stereotypes and some of them, they were found from chimpanzees to humans, by what?

By the poaching and consumption of these chimpanzees. Well, something I, I always like to make a little bit of, of thinking, and for me, it's, it's quite frustration working on the field, is the amount of millions that currently is still today, HIV is costing to the planet along with the human's life that is costing. How much Ebola did cost on the past and still today's costing.

And how much it was invest on control of wildlife medicine and wildlife surveillance, surveillance on the ground and how much it was invested and protected this species. I can assure you that this is quite little. So, and Ebola, how it's affected a great apes or not affected great AD because this is something that no one told us, or at least to the most of us.

Well, if Ebola can, can affect the humans, in some, is there, again, there's different serotypes. I'm not going to go there on the different serotypes, but some of the more Deadliest stereotypes of Ebola affect up to 70% of the population of humans. Well, on the case of chimpanzees and gorillas, it goes up to 95% of mortality and 77% of mortality in the case of chimpanzees, so 95% of gorillas and 77% of chimpanzees.

So, there are some data that suggests that the current estimations is the one, every 31 of the third of the worst gorillas and chimpanzees have died from Ebola since the 90s. So, again, quite scary for, again, greater populations. So, in some of the, of the national parks, West and Central Africa, the population of gorillas declined all the way to a 90%, and they were found up to 5000 dead gorillas, some of the, on the, of the national parks.

These studies are done based on density and serological studies, most of them. So, at the end, there again, the, the risk and how extremely important is that we learned how to pass the message is that we can, if we say Ebola chimpanzees and humans, we can, then suddenly the part of the films here are the chimpanzees definitely transmitting the, the Ebola to humans. However, if we make the, our homework properly and we do the work and we should.

We, there are researchers that prove that actually, African primates are likely victims, no reservoirs of the Ebola viruses. So there are quite, quite a lot of data and there are more and more publications every day that shows that the reservoirs of Ebola virus might be fruit bats, and again, that they don't transmit the diseases to humans just because it there's a process on the way and the outbreaks that to humans, they were by the consumption. Of chimpanzees and monkeys that they are already mainly chimpanzees that they were already in an outbreak themselves and the virus was already killing themselves.

The, the the virus was already killing the population. So now the question is, all right, so Ebola was described on the 70s, first time it was described. So the question is, and where was Ebola before?

So, it was there, it was not there. Suddenly it happened. Why is suddenly a problem and it just, it, it was just created as well.

So again, things that we need to consider, again, increase of human population and transport and Increase of deforestation. Increase of encroachment and increase of wildlife consumption. So, if we put everything together, there is a beautiful article that I like to share, that they put together where are the different outbreaks of Ebola virus.

Along with where are some of the minings on, on the, at the, at the same time, and as well, bigger high deforestation of the, on the continent. And it happened to be that this is a beautiful and perfect match, one with the others. So yes, the increase of, of changes on lands and the, the destruction of, of nature.

Increase the probabilities of outbreaks of diseases. Exactly the reason why, how is that the spillover created, no one knows exactly. But there are, you know, the, the data is there.

As well, we need to understand that when we create an area where it's a mining or or there are deforestation, we are bringing humans, sometimes a lot of outsiders that they are not local people into the area and a lot, then we're increasing the chances of poaching and poaching meat consumption. There is a beautiful article as well, that say that can, German and trees determine the tensity and distribution of gorillas and chimpanzees in western equatorial Africa. So again, all these articles, I encourage you to have a look.

Then, let's look to other synosis and anthroposyosis. Unfortunately, the pathogen transmission does not always occurs at at conflict. Sometimes, even if we are going with the best of our intentions, it can occur.

So encroachment, let's talk about, we have encroachment, where we are really into wildlife areas, or when we are just living in the surrounding areas on the parks. Tourism, close monitoring, that research work, the risk factor of transmission from humans to great apes and how this thing happened. Well, again, there are many articles, that this is just one of them that proved that pathogen transmission from humans to great apes is a growing threat to primate conservation.

Why? Easily. We are going more and more into protected areas and we are, we are exposing them to new diseases that they were never exposed.

And one of these mainly diseases are respiratory diseases. Amongst other religious, mention some of them respiratory diseases, polio-like disease, melas-like disease, cavis, intermin things and protozoa, salmonella keriia coli, and antibiotic resistance. So again, this is a very, very simplified summary.

And just for you as well to be aware of from these diseases, which ones are those that they're having an impact on the population of wildlife. So again, going one step, step, step back, we think about HIV, we know the impact on, on humans and until now, we thought that the previous the previous, let's call it CASA to keep it very simple of HIV where is the same animal deficiency virus did not have an impact on chimpanze in population. Now, there is starting to be some data that showed that yes, that reduced the, reduced the reproduction, they start to, to show some symptoms and it seems like they are immunocompromised.

Other virus, including, including polio-like, that The very well-known gul that she described on her PhD amongst other viruses. And then we have C virus. So something that you might be aware, adenovirus is a virus that is very common on winters across the planet.

And actually Europe, it has a massive outbreak this year of adenovirus. Everybody that they know in Europe, they, they are, they were sick this year. mainly from adenovirus.

So, in humans, they're not immunocompromised, it's just a normal pneumonia pneumonia with gastrointestinal symptoms. It can be some complication on, on infants and again on immunocompromised people. However, there's a high risk when we exposed populations that they were never exposed to this virus again, the, the, to this virus before.

We have as well, human, the different, influenza, the influenza. So basically, our normal cold, the normal, the virus that we go throughout human population goes throughout the years, in normal cold. Well, the normal codes that we call it, it can kill, it have the mortality from the 0 to 1100%.

In some of the cases. So we need to be extremely, concerned about this. So you can imagine, suddenly we are bringing tourists or researchers, including veterinarians into areas that are protected areas where greater population, let's call it, let's take one example, gorillas populations that they were never exposed to the virus and suddenly we challenging them with these new viruses, then suddenly, there's a higher risk of the spillover and an outbreak on the population and create high mortalities as well, and the situations where they were.

Mortalities in a lot of situations, they were described together with bacterial infection like Eretococcus nemoni. So, obviously, there are protocols that they're extremely, I'm not, again, I'm not going to go on on details on that, but there are protocols on how to control these, these outbreaks into the wild and how to have good procedures and to the extremely important of implementing good procedures onto the wild population. Again, more different kind of, of, of the diseases as well, including monkeypox.

And let's talk about the last one, antimicrobial resistance. So, if you think of antimicrobial resistance, which is currently considered a pandemic, and, and emerging infectious diseases, you might think, well, you're all familiar what's happening in hospital, what's happening in human. Population, what's happening.

I'm sure all of you that work with the clinics, the all the antibiotic resistant that you are found in, in your clinics or with your animals when you're trying to treat. But then it's antibiotic, they are antibiotic resistant in the wild, and I'm not talking about soo animals or rescue animals. I'm talking about animals that they live in the wild.

So if you think of the, this ecosystem, would you consider there is any antibiotic resistant on this animal, and I can assure you that this gorilla, it was never treated before in its life. So yes or no? And this situation, this is a rhino, OK, this is South Africa.

Maybe this rhino was translocated one or two times on its life. Let's call it once, and to, from one reserve to the other. And so maximum was just one transport.

Is that enough to create the antibiotic resistant or not? And here is when I consider we had one case of of poaching accident, incident, we were treating a rhino and shot, shot the wound. Unfortunately, the bullet was inside.

So anyway, so, long history short, we found a lot of antibiotic resistance on the animal. So it's the first time actually we were consider, well, how this animal have antibiotic resistance? And there is something now with the years, and now with the new PHP that I'm busy with, is when the consideration is that the animal is not the one with the resistance.

The one that has the resistance is the bacteria. The bacteria, the ecosystems. They are infected with bacteria that they are resistant to antibiotics.

So actually, we can measure the level of anthropogenic impact based on the level of bacteria pollution, bacteria with antibiotic resistance on the ecosystem. And yes, In South Africa, we have a lot of, let's call it this kind of quite this intense. So actually, it's not surprising that we're finding wildlife that they were never treated before in their life with bacteria that yes, they are resistant to antibiotics.

So, yes, antimicrobial resistance is classified between emerging infectious diseases and pandemics. Unfortunately, there's quite fortunately because of the research, but unfortunately because of the reality, there is more and more research that prove that antibiotic resistance on wildlife. So this is one of them that they are antibiotic resistant on, on gorillas and the mountain gorillas and in Rwanda.

Here, again, approved the transmission of neresistance between wildlife and livestock interface. And here as far as in Galapagos Island, here is my PSD director involved. And places again, as far as the, the polar regions as well.

So something that we need to think and this is the, the, the project where I am, where I'm currently busy with, that the one thing is when we do a basic culture of the antibiotic resistance, in a and then it shows, which anti in a basic antibiogram shows the treatment that we should consider. And then is the studies molecular analysis, and this is the kind of study that all these projects they have in common. It's the molecular analysis to prove the genetic, the genes and the bacteria are developing to protect themselves and against antibiotic.

And it happened to be that the genetics that can be transmitted from one population to other populations of in the wild and while in the different ecosystem. So again, I'm not going to go in detail, but unfortunately, yes, ecosystem that they look pristine that are getting infected or they're getting polluted with antibiotic resistant genes. So, to conclude and to try to bring some light at the end, you're like, all right, everything is happening.

So now what? So first of all, is to show you that we have a lot of professionals working on different areas of wildlife health to study and to show the impact of the anthropogenic on, on wildlife population, but as well to show that by doing nothing. We are just by all of us doing nothing, we have a directly negative impact.

We have an anthropogenic impact on wildlife populations. So basically, for the extinction of the species to continue occurring with the, along with the destruction of nature, all we need to keep doing is doing nothing. And then wildlife will be gone.

Or we can decide to do something and that's the good news. So we can be changing or the, the anthropogenic impact into a positive human footprint or into a positive footprint. Is that possible?

Well, Yes, it's possible. We are professionals. We have today the tools to the same that a lot of you are extremely, I'm sure there are a lot of extremely good clinicians working with a small animal livestock or horses, and I hope some of you as well working with wildlife, we can change that.

We can decide I'm going to refuse to just by doing nothing, I'm going to start bringing my knowledge and my energies and my profession into protect the wildlife. So into that theme, luckily, there are other professionals like me working on this area. But the way I work on the project that we are extremely excited currently and we are quite pioneer together with very few other organisations in the planet is Wild Speed fun.

So what are we doing on Wild Spirit Fund? We are doing wildlife Conservation medicine, basically whaturing that the wildlife populations. In the wild, they stay, we protect them, we conserve them, and we create, we ensure their health because again, this is where veterinarians will come.

It's not only about conserving an animal or protecting an animal, it's about ensuring the health of this animal. And this situation is not one gorilla, but it's 1 thousands of gorillas, just one example. So what are the different things that we do here?

So we do wildlife conservation medicine scientific project. We do wildlife veterinary capacity building, training of wildlife veterinarians. We are very much involved in projects that promote the coresystem between human and wildlife and that's very easier said than done.

And again, I'm not going to go in details. It's extremely difficult and challenging situations, but with professionals, On the ground and with the right tools, it's, it's possible to, to limit the, the conflict and promote or create coexistence between humans and wildlife. And then as well we have project that they focus on endangered species protection.

So here, again, this, by the way, this look that please, I invite you to go on the website and have a look, is a new look of the website we'll have in a few weeks. So if you go currently, when you, you see this presentation, don't get scared, you see a different show and it's just that this is the new one that is coming. Just now.

So different projects that we have, we work with Gilla Health incarceration, the wildlife health system. We have, we have some projects as well of equipping some of the rescue centre that they are in very remote areas like the one that we work with in, in DRC. In the Central Africa, as well, we have a project here in South Africa with rhino conservation.

We have a beautiful new project with Marine Turtles Conservation Health in, in Gabon that they happen to be that hosts some of the biggest con populations of leatherback turtles, and we have one. Veterinary medicine and surveillance. Basically, what is so extremely important, what are we finding after so many years and why we decide to do this project?

Because despite in some other areas on the planet, mainly on rich countries and in South Africa as well, we have a lot of resources, we have highly, a lot of experts. However, in many, many other countries, this is not the situation. So we need to Create the capacity for professionals so that they can do the job that they need to do.

We need to create research surveillance so we understand currently what is the health situation of populations in many, in many areas of endangered populations. So when the outbreak occur, we are already there one step ahead to control this outbreak and To protect the population, or even more to prevent outbreaks on many, many situations. So, yeah, it's a, it's a lifetime experience and a lot of work that I really encourage you to be part of that.

And yeah, thank you very much. I hope you enjoy the presentation and then that you learned today to with together with me. So, thank you very much.